''[[http://www.ftlgame.com/ FTL: Faster Than Light]]'' is a "{{Roguelike}}-like" spaceship simulation game released by Subset Games.

The player controls the crew of a lone spaceship affiliated with TheFederation, which is currently on the losing end of a massive rebellion. The objective is to deliver important information to the remains of the Federation fleet in a distant sector. Unfortunately, as those familiar with Roguelikes will suspect, this is [[NintendoHard far, FAR from easy]]: the galaxy is an extremely dangerous place for a lone vessel, filled with dangers such as pirates, deadly environmental hazards, rebel scouts, hostile alien races, and others. Not to mention that the vast rebel fleet is in hot pursuit...

''FTL'''s gameplay involves the player's ship "jumping" between waypoints in a randomly generated galaxy, most of them containing a RandomEvent. The main game interface is a cross-section view of your ship, showing the layout of rooms filled with crewmen and various ship systems (helm, engines, shields, weapons, etc). During combat, the player must juggle various aspects of the ship--from crew assignments to power allocation and weapons targeting. Certain systems gain bonuses from being manned, but you may need those crew members to repair damaged systems, repel boarders, or simply evacuate dangerous areas. Meanwhile, all ship systems need power to function, but your ship's reactor may not be able to supply them all at once, leaving the player to decide which are most important at any given time. Along the way you'll collect scrap, the game's currency, and use it to upgrade your ship's systems, get repairs, fuel and--if you're lucky--some fancier things like new weaponry or whole new systems such as cloaking devices, teleporters and more.

''FTL'' was officially released for purchase from the developers, UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and GOG.com on September 14th, 2012, although early beta access was granted to its {{Kickstarter}} backers. Speaking of Kickstarter, [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light it is one of the first completed games spawned from such a project.]]

In November 2013, the developers announced ''[[http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=598 FTL: Advanced Edition]]'', a free ExpansionPack that adds new equipment, events, weapons, enemy ships, and various other goodies, as well as an [[IOSGames iPad]] port. Both ''Advanced Edition'' and the port were released on April 3rd, 2014.

Not to be confused with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL_Games the developer]], which was best known for its own Roguelike, ''VideoGame/DungeonMaster'', and its sequels. Also not to be confused with the trope FasterThanLightTravel, even though this game [[{{CaptainObvious}} obviously]] uses it for getting around.

----!!''FTL'' contains examples of:

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[[folder:A-C]]* AchievementSystem: The game has an internal system for achievements that also acts as the mechanism for unlocking new ships and deck layouts as they are completed.* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: [[EnforcedTrope Enforced]] with the Rock ship achievement, "Defense Drones Don't Do D'anything!"* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Played straight with ammunition (missile, drones), fuel, and repairs. Averted with equipment of any kind, which always costs the same no matter when it's purchased. This is balanced with randomized store inventories.* AdvancingWallOfDoom: The Rebel fleet, which after three jumps moves across each sector from left to right, replacing any jump beacon it overlaps with a fight against a powerful rebel ship that gives only one unit of fuel when defeated. Certain events can slow the wall or even speed it up; don't let those rebel scouts get away!* AbnormalAmmo: Crystal weapons fire, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crystals]].* AerithAndBob: Crew names range from normal names like Alex or Elizabeth to stuff like Luaan Ti and GM Faux. A lot of those names are taken from the game's Kickstarter supporters.* AlienBlood: When Slugs and Mantises die, a pool of green blood can briefly be seen.* AlienInvasion: Inverted. The antagonistic, [[FantasticRacism human-supremacist]] Rebels are trying to destroy TheFederation, which comprises many different alien races alongside humans.* AlphaStrike: A common and often necessary tactic for overwhelming the enemy. Assuming that a ship's weapon systems are upgraded so that it can power several weapons simultaneously, carefully timing their shots such that they happen closely together in a tight salvo can knock out shields, overwhelm defense drones, and set the enemy crew dealing with more damage control at once than it can comfortably handle. This is also a necessary tactic to employ beam weapons, which cannot penetrate shielding on their own. The Weapon Pre-igniter ship augment lets you launch one the moment a battle starts, and there's an achievement for using it to blow up an enemy ship with the first volley. Your enemies will rarely do this, since they normally fire each weapon the moment it is charged, even if waiting for the rest of their weapons to charge would be a lot more effective. However, cloaked enemy ships will sometimes charge all their weapons and hold their fire while cloaking, so that when they uncloak they release a barrage of fire.* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Averted--you can find reasonable and friendly members of all races. Even some of the rebels aren't too happy with the situation and [[PunchClockVillain are just following orders]]. Perhaps the closest you get are the telepathic ConMan Slugs, who were excluded from the Federation because of their incessant exploitative antics. Even then, individual Slugs may work for the Federation regardless and you do come across the occasional trustworthy one.* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Sure, each layout comes with enough differences that it's practically a completely different ship, but one of those differences is a spiffy new paint job.* AntiFrustrationFeatures: As hard as the game is, it does has a few features that prevent it from getting really bad.** Your teleport and FTL drive charge instantly when you're not in battle. This can help avoid situations like your crew burning to death or suffocating in an otherwise empty ship, as well as sparing you the wait to bring your crew back or charge your engines if you defeated the enemy quickly. The exception is levels with environmental hazards like asteroids or solar flares, but even in those, your FTL drive will charge at an increased rate after the battle.** The CriticalAnnoyance alert when a crewman is almost dead is annoying; however, given the action that happens during a battle, it can be a very vital clue that you're about to lose a crewman that might otherwise perish because you can't focus on everything at once.** When preparing to jump away with your crew still on board the enemy ship, the game will ask "Are you ''sure'' you want to jump away? Your crew is still on the enemy ship!"** Once a ship is considered defeated by surrender or crew death, any and all weapons you might have fired at them prior will automatically miss. This keeps you from accidentally killing your crew with a stray shot when you've already won. The same doesn't hold true in reverse, though.** If your teleporter gets knocked out while your entire crew is on board the enemy ship, and you defeat the enemy crew, your crew will take a shuttle back to your ship to prevent an unwinnable state.** The ''Advanced Edition'' update offers an alternate unlock for ships which merely requires you to win the game with the previous unlocked ship. This makes some of the more difficult ships much easier to obtain. For example, the Mantis cruiser requires an advanced medbay and a boarding party that can beat a Mantis crew, but beating the game with the Zoltan cruiser does the job just as well. The quest is still left available, however, and is a separate achievement. In addition, the Crystal cruiser can be unlocked by beating the game with the Type B versions of every other ship, instead of the [[GuideDangIt difficult and luck-based]] quest that would normally unlock it.** A death blow to the Flagship at stage three wins the game regardless of the condition of your ship. It is entirely possible for both your ship and the Flagship to be destroyed by each other's last volley. This is useful for the game/ship achievements and Class B ship unlocks.* AntiGrinding: The [[AdvancingWallOfDoom Rebel Fleet]] forces you to go to the further, more difficult sectors, even if there are unexplored places in the current sector. If you jump to a node that the Rebels have either reached or completely taken over, you'll be faced with a ship that's disproportionally powerful compared to your own, and defeating it will only yield one unit of fuel to jump to the next node. There are no other rewards of any kind, except in specific circumstances (if you have no fuel, for example, you'll usually get several for winning). The best you can do is maximize the time you spend in any one sector through careful jump selection. ''Advanced Edition'' further upped the ante by adding a shield-piercing WaveMotionGun that even goes through Zoltan shields, causing three damage and a hull breach, which regularly fires on your ship if the Rebels have secured that node. Previously, a well-equipped ship could tank the rebels, enabling you to spend even more time in a sector. In fact, doing this is what allows some players to reach high scores above 10,000. In ''Advanced Edition'', grinding them is out of the question.* AnyoneCanDie: ** Those crew members that you've been with since the start of the game, trained up from skill-less {{Mooks}} with no abilities whatsoever into vital parts of your ship, can be killed off at a moment's notice. And the game carries on, expecting you to man up and find a way to deal. There's actually an achievement for not losing a man all the way through, aptly titled "No [[RedShirt Redshirts]] Here".** As of ''Advanced Edition'', Clone Bays, which take the same slot as the Medbay, can revive your own units should they die, although the cloned character gets a penalty to their skills.* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: No more than eight crewmembers in a ship.* ArmorPiercingAttack:** Missiles, bomb teleporters, and boarding drones can bypass shields entirely, as long as you have the ammo to use them. One of the earliest strategies the game teaches you is to use missiles to knock out the shields on enemy ships, allowing the lasers to finish the job.** Crystal weapons and piercing lasers have the property of piercing a single layer of shields. Not as powerful as a missile, true, but they have unlimited ammo.** The Federation Cruiser is equipped with a high-power artillery beam that can't be dodged and cuts straight through any defenses short of Zoltan shields, as long as it has [[NecessaryDrawback enough time to power up]].* ArtificialGravity: Crew members are never shown floating inside spacecraft; they're always either standing, walking, or [[CriticalExistenceFailure collapsed over]].* ArtificialStupidity[=/=]AIRoulette: A necessity in this game; it's NintendoHard even with dumb AI. If the AI could do half the stuff a player can, the game would be unplayably hard.** Enemy ships use autofire constantly, meaning their weapons will likely fire out of sync, giving your shields time to recover. However, they sometimes won't fire weapons while cloaked, which can result in an AlphaStrike if the cloak lasts long enough.** Enemy ships fire weapons without regard to their effectiveness -- missiles at a defense drone, beams at a shielded ship, etc. In combination with randomized enemy loadouts, it is possible to have a ship which is incapable of hurting the player yet won't stop trying, turning it into an experience fountain to train up crew skills.** Enemy ships pick targets at random, instead of strategically targeting systems, even when doing this is detrimental to the weapon in question -- ion weapons, for example. This extends to specialized systems like hacking, teleportation, and mind control.** Enemy ships will deploy their cloaks as soon as they recharge. This allows the player to know precisely when they'll use the cloak and plan accordingly. The same applies to the hacking and mind control systems.** Enemy crew members follow a specific pattern when dealing with threats, which makes manipulating their behavior incredibly simple:*** On their ships, they will run to their medbay as soon as their health starts to get low, and will [[TooDumbToLive fight an unstoppable boarding party to the death if it's full]].*** They will prioritize the protection/repair of shields and weapons, occasionally even forsaking defending other systems to repair them. The former system is the absolute highest priority, allowing you to draw them away from other systems by having your crew attack it or damaging it with weapons.*** They won't cease attacking a blast door once they've begun attacking it, even if another door is opened in the same room.*** They will immediately retreat from any airless room. While sensible, this makes it trivially easy to herd a boarding party into your medbay, where they are guaranteed to lose. A number of boarders that can easily overwhelm the crew [[http://imgur.com/X9XmfCG will still refuse to travel through an airless room]].*** They teleport into random rooms, much like how weapons will target random rooms. This means they can end up in a system-less room. Or worse for them, an open airlock on a ship with upgraded blast doors.*** If the enemy ship has a teleporter, they will ''always'' use it. Even to send just one crew member, or to send in Engies and Zoltans if no other choice of boarders are available, regardless of how much more effective it is to just keep the entire crew on board.*** They only retreat from your ship at low health, even when faced with a battle they can't possibly win.** Enemy ships have random arsenals; it's entirely possible to wind up fighting an enemy that relies solely on beams, making it incapable of harming you if you have any amount of shields active. Some enemy systems are also randomized for each encounter, leading to the amusing sight of a shieldless auto-ship attacking you in an asteroid field and ending up dead without you having to fire a shot.** Your own boarders will cease destroying systems on the enemy ship as soon as the enemy crew is dead - even if the ship still has an active mind control system. Since you're also prevented from shooting at enemy ships after the battle is over, this refusal can lead to you having to kill or maroon one of your own crew.** Your boarders will target drones on the enemy ship before targeting enemies, even if their drone system is ioned/broken.* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The Mantis Pheromones augment should only increase the speed of Mantis crew, since pheromones by definition only affect one species, but that would make the augment less useful.* AscendedFanboy: "Robert Smith," [[ObliviousAdoption the Mantis raised by humans]], can become this if you opt to offer him a spot on your crew during his event. He mentions that he always wanted to serve in the Federation.* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: When you approach the "Great Eye" in a Zoltan sector, one of the possible outcomes is a crew member aging in reverse, then disappearing. You're uncertain what happened to that crew member because even a Clone Bay won't bring them back, and you hope that they've transcended physical existence.* AsteroidMiners: You can do this in certain events with the Scrap Recovery Arm. You can also find sites left behind by other miners, some of which may be crawling with evil alien spiders.* AsteroidThicket: Some jump beacons lead to them. Your ship is pelted with rocks, taking out one layer of shielding with each hit and causing damage if they hit the hull. Thankfully, they usually don't come fast enough to beat more than one layer of shielding, but it does make fighting enemies more difficult. This damage also applies to the enemy vessel, making any fight very easy if you can take out their shields. Early on, it's possible to destroy certain ships without firing a shot! Alternatively, sometimes you can get resources by escorting damaged vessels out of them or salvaging supplies left by AsteroidMiners.* AttackDrone: Can be used once you have the Drone Control ship system. Comes in either laser or beam varieties, the former being useful for suppressing shields or doing heavy but random damage to unshielded enemies, and the latter being useful for doing even heavier damage to unshielded targets at the cost of being completely ineffectual against shields. Other drones can defend against incoming fire, especially missiles, repair damaged systems, repair your ship's hull, repel boarders, or be sent over to board the enemy. Advanced Edition adds more drones, including ones that board the enemy and release ion bursts to knock out systems and crew, steadily regenerate a Zoltan Shield around your ship, attack enemy combat drones, etc.* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The [[FinalBoss Rebel Flagship]]. Justified, in that it's a ship built to protect the most senior staff of the fleet.* AutoDoc: The Med Bay explicitly works by automatically pumping the patient full of healing nanomachines, no human (or alien) operator required. The Engi ship comes with an augment that allows these nanomachines to be pumped into the ship's life support system and offer (somewhat slower) healing throughout the ship, and [[HealingShiv a weapon system]] can be found that packs the nanomachines into a ''bomb'' that can be teleported onto an enemy ship to heal boarding parties mid-operation.* AwesomeButImpractical:** The Mk. II Defense Drone fires faster than the Mk. I and can shoot down any kind of incoming projectile, including laser bursts and ion blasts, not just missiles and boarding drones like the Mk. I. However, like all drones, it's computer-controlled and has no threat priority system, meaning it will often prioritize a closer, weak laser over the more dangerous missile that will go right through your shielding. It also requires four bars of power to operate, compared to two for the more reliable Mk. I. It's good, just not as good in practice as it is on paper. ''Advanced Edition'' reduced the power consumption by one bar and made it slightly faster, but it still falls short of the Mk. 1.** Almost any weapon that costs four bars of reactor power to use, and even some that cost three. They are very easy to disable, since they're power hogs, and often have prohibitively long charge times. A series of weaker, less power-intensive weapons can often do more overall damage.** By extension of the above, the Type B Stealth Cruiser, [=DA-SR12=], is this. A sleek, shiny vessel, it sacrifices the engine power, the Titanium Systems Casing augmentation, and the weak but efficient combo of a Mini Beam and Dual Lasers used by the Type A for a Glaive Beam and level 2 cloak. The Glaive Beam can often kill pretty much any ship in the first sector, but they're practically guaranteed to get at least one clear shot off before that happens, even if you time your cloak perfectly. Put together, this basically makes the first sector a LuckBasedMission until you can find some shields.* AwesomeMcCoolname: A few ships' default names fall into this. For instance, you have the Mantis Type A, ''The Gila Monster'', and the Mantis Type B, ''The Basilisk''. The Slug Type B cruiser, ''The Stormwalker'', has a cool name but that's about the only good thing about it.* BackFromTheBrink: The rebels are steamrolling TheFederation so hard, they're represented in game as an AdvancingWallOfDoom. But by the time you've made it to the last stand, you can have upgraded your ship enough to defeat the best ship in the enemy fleet ''three times over'', turning the war around.* BeamSpam: Several weapons fire multiple shots. At the extreme, if you're lucky, you can have a ship that can fire 12 lasers at once, easily overwhelming just about everything. The FinalBoss has a triple-barreled heavy laser cannon and a triple-barreled ion cannon, [[spoiler:but will lose the second after its first loss. In the second phase, its Power Surge ability launches numerous anti-ship drones that will tear through your shields in seconds, on top of the drones it has already and its heavy lasers. In the final phase of the battle, its Power Surge move launches a barrage of six 1-damage laser shots at you, which is practically frivolous in comparison to the previous phase.]]* BeehiveBarrier: Shields are these. The beehive gets more pronounced with additional layers.* BenevolentArchitecture: The Rebel flagship, if you're planning to board it and kill the crew. All four of its guns stations are in isolated rooms, making it easy to destroy those systems except the triple laser, and none of them can be repaired as no Rebel crew can get to them. In Hard, however, both the missile launcher and laser are connected to the main area itself. * {{BFG}}: ** Some weapons, like the Glaive Beam, are several times the size of their more basic counterparts, with damage output to match. The final boss has no less than ''four'' {{BFG}}s: triple-barreled missile, ion and laser weapons, along with a long two-damage Halberd-like beam.** The ''Artillery Beam'' system on the Federation Cruiser. In exchange for never being able to use a cloaking device and having no target control over the weapon, you get a beam that can pierce all shields except Zoltan shields, and dish out serious damage as a result.*** Even more powerful in ''Advanced Edition'', as you are now able to use cloaking with the Federation Cruiser.** The Vulcan is a GatlingGood chain-laser introduced in ''Advanced Edition'' that increases its fire rate with each consecutive shot, eventually becoming fast enough to rip through any number of shields.** Flak Mk 2. Introduced in ''Advanced Edition''. Very inaccurate, but ''extremely'' deadly if the shots hit due to the fact that it's a gun that fire ''7'' shots in a single fire (which means it's also extremely good at plowing through shields). Plus, it only costs 3 energy to operate. Federation C also has this as the Flak Artillery.* BigDumbObject: The "Great Eye" monolith is one - it's large enough to be seen with the naked eye in a nebula on a drifting planet, and if you obey the Zoltan elder and approach it, depending on your luck, it can make one of your crew disappear (and a clone bay won't bring them back), give you a healing weapon, give you a high amount of scrap, or ignore you.* BittersweetEnding: Your ship and the flagship can kill each at the same time. If the Flagship is destroyed in this way at stage three, you win and the Federation is saved, but your entire crew died.* BizarreAlienBiology:** A RandomEvent mentions that Rocks have no internal organs, but they're still vulnerable to asphyxiation like any other race. That said, their 150% HP will allow them to survive longer, which is useful for boarding airless automated enemy ships. Crystal aliens, on the other hand, are resistant to suffocation, though not immune.** ''Advanced Edition'' adds the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Lanius]], a race of metal creatures that suck oxygen out of rooms and absorb metal into their bodies.* BoardingParty: Some events will result in the player's ship being boarded. Both players and enemies can send in boarding parties if they have the Crew Teleporter ship system. Mantis ships, particularly types B and C, are designed around this, since they get bonuses in hand-to-hand combat and 4-man teleporters.* BoomerangBigot: A sad example in one event. It tasks you with calming down Robert Smith, a Mantis who is convinced he's a human. Sending another Mantis results in Robert panicking at the sight of a terrifying alien and lashing out against his captors, eventually needing to be put down. Luckily, sending a human or using a MindControlDevice results in a positive outcome.* BoringButPractical:** As a general rule, upgrading crucial systems even if your reactor is not good enough to power them fully yet. The empty power squares serve as a damage buffer, which means said systems ''may'' not be immediately shut down if they take damage. This is especially true of the oxygen and piloting systems.** An upgraded door system can mean the difference between life and death. Upgraded doors block fires from spreading and force boarders to breach the doors first. This allows you to starve either of air or rally your crew to handle the problem.** A fully upgraded oxygen system can outpace the oxygen drain of a hull breach, which is useful for dealing with boarding drones. Upgraded oxygen is even more important in ''Advanced Edition'', since a level 3 Hacking system can drain oxygen faster than a level 1 oxygen system can replenish it.** An upgraded teleporter system has very little practical use, since the majority of the time your crew will fight long enough for it to recharge. It does have one very important use, though; at level 2, the teleporter recharges fast enough to beam your crew into and back out of a completely depressurized room without killing them (they have to have 100 health, and will just barely survive with ~10 health if not otherwise damaged), making teleportation a viable strategy against drone ships.** An upgraded medbay allows for most "blue-choices" to appear during numerous random events, enabling the player to obtain better outcomes regardless of whether the medbay is powered or not.** The Burst Laser series. A gun that fires 2, 3, or 5 single damage shots may not sound exciting compared to the bigger guns and missiles, but it doesn't need ammo and chews through shields better than anything short of a missile aimed at the shield generator. The Burst II model is especially practical, using the same amount of power as Burst I to fire three lasers instead of two.** The best way to level your crew is to find or create a battle where the enemy's weapons cannot penetrate your shields and leave the game running for by itself while you go do other things and your crew gets some no-risk training.** The Kestrel's starting missile launcher will be a mainstay in your arsenal, even as you get lasers that chop through hulls and bombs of radiation. It only uses one bar of power, and still has the shield-piercing capabilities of every other missile in the game. The same is true of the Leto missile on the Federation B; a weak, one-bar missile that is every bit as capable of piercing shields as any other missile.** The Ion Bomb is this. It does nothing more than disable an enemy system, expending a missile to do so. However, as a consequence, it does its task with such reliability, bypassing shields and defense drones, and at such relatively low cost in terms of ship power that as long as you can feed it, it can serve even better than an Ion energy weapon.** Boarding Drones against AI-run Auto-Scouts, for ships that don't start with any real weapons, like the Mantis Cruiser Type B. They will slowly but surely kill every system on the ship, doing one point of damage every time they take the system down, until the ship itself blows up after losing its last hull point. This doesn't work on the scout's larger Auto-Assault cousins, though, which are compartmentalized and thus prevent boarding drones from being able to move around within them. To beat those, you need to have a level 2 teleporter so your crew can get in and out without dying, leaving the drone to deal the final blow.** Basic lasers are dull, firing only a single laser beam and doing a relatively pitiful one damage on a hit. However, the Kestrel's B-type layout, the Red Tail, comes with ''four of them'', which, combined with their single power requirement and a decently trained weapons officer, will chew through anything with two or less shields, and reliably put the hurt on anything with 3 shields. It's only when enemies start getting four shields that you need to seriously consider upgrading.** The Scrap Recovery Arm boosts your scrap collection by 10%. Doesn't seem like much, but the scrap bonuses add up over time, and it's much more pronounced in later sectors when defeated ships dole out more scrap. If you somehow manage to pick up a second SRA, the boost stacks up. Having one also adds a blue option to a relatively common event, resulting in a nice pile of scrap if you happen to get it.** Hull Repair Drones don't do anything exciting and spend most of the time stashed away in storage. But they can save your life if your ship is starting to break apart from all the accumulated ScratchDamage and there's no store in sight. They are especially useful for healing in between the three phases of the boss fight. They also help you save scrap you'd pay for repairs, if you have more drone parts than you need.* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: The default Kestrel was decommissioned already prior to the game start and had to be pulled out of mothballs.* CameBackStrong: [[spoiler:A certain Engi event cause one of your Engi crew to be disintegrated due to 'a virus'. Win against the virus investigators afterwards, and said virus will reform your dead Engi crew with all skills maxed.]]* CantCatchUp: A problem in the vanilla game, as even though you could hire potentially useful crew members later on, their complete lack of skills ensured they were only hired to replace deceased members. ''Advanced Edition'' averts this with new crew members potentially leveled in skills already, meaning it could be worthwhile to swap your roster.* {{Cap}}: A [[http://imgur.com/a/gTbt4 save file corruption]] shows that the session records cap (ships defeated, beacons explored, scrap collected, and crew hired) is 32,767. The cap for crew records is likely the same.* CharmPerson: If you have a Slug crew mate, there are blue options in certain events. Most of them involve the Slug mentally surveying an area, communicating with someone out of harm's way, or checking an enemy Slug. There is one event, however, where the Slug silently talks some Zoltan guards into let your ship bypass profiling. Usually, the mere sight of a Slug ship at a trade hub causes the guards to attack. Here, your crewmember is able to convince them your ship is fine and to give you fuel, so it's implied there was some degree of mind control going on.* ClippedWingAngel: [[spoiler:The third form of the Rebel Flagship; while it [[DamageSpongeBoss can take a lot of punishment]], it's a far cry from the murderous second form. With good evasion and a well-aimed shot at the missile launcher, it will be practically incapable of hurting you. Its wings are even ''literally'' clipped, since the wing-like nacelles on either side blew up in the last two rounds]].* CloneDegeneration: The Clone Bay system produces a clone of any crew member that dies, but at the cost of lowering their skills. Thus, while you will technically never lose your crew, they will not be as powerful as they could be, and you have to forsake healing them during battles to do it, which makes it all the more likely that they'll die unless supplemented by other methods of healing. Furthermore, while the Clone Bay does heal with each jump, it can only heal a maximum of 25 HP per jump.* CloningGambit[=/=]ExpendableClone: ''Advanced Edition'' introduces the Clone Bay system, which can take the place of the Medbay and replace dead crewmembers at the cost of losing some of their experience. This also makes it possible to have your entire crew killed and not immediately lose, assuming the clone bay is online, though an augment removes even that restriction. However, there is an unexpected hiccup if you have both; if your entire crew is dead and your Clone Bay is completely destroyed with no means to repair it (like a Repair Drone) the game rendered {{Unwinnable}} and you're forced to reset.* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:** The individual sectors in the sector map fall into one of three different colors: green, red, and purple. Green sectors (Civilian, Engi, and Zoltan) tend to have more friendly and non-combat encounters and are a low-risk choice, while red sectors (Rock, Rebel, Mantis, Pirate-Controlled, and Abandoned) have more combat encounters and dangerous enemies, but can potentially provide you with more scrap thanks to the numerous battles. Purple sectors, fittingly ambiguous compared to the normal danger level spectrum, are reserved for nebula sectors - Slug and Uncharted - in which fleet pursuit is slowed and rebel [=ASBs=] cannot shoot you should you be overtaken, but where you often lose system functionality.** Each race or faction has a distinct color scheme for their ships. Their Type A playable cruisers all follow their faction's standard color scheme, while their Type B cruisers have unique liveries. Pirate-controlled enemy ships will have the standard colors of whichever race's ship they're flying painted over with crude purple splotches and pirate symbols, which the Kestrel Type C uses.*** Federation ships are light grey with orange stripes, with the exception of the Stealth Cruisers, which weren't completed until after the Rebellion. This includes the playable Kestrel and Osprey cruisers.*** Rebel manned ships are bright orange, with light blue stripes. Interestingly, the Kestrel's Type B counterpart, the Red-Tail, has Rebel colors, suggesting that you stole it from them along with the intel about the flagship. Rebel automated ships, on the other hand, are dark matte grey.*** Mantis ships are solid blood-red. Their Type B cruiser, however, is navy-blue with turquoise stripes. Their Type C cruiser is a very dark cyan with sky blue lights.*** Rock ships are a rocky orangish brown evocative of sandstone. Their Type B cruiser is igneous black with red lights on the edges between armor plates, similar to the Rockmen themselves, who are dark grey with red eyes. Their Type C cruiser has the armor colored a shiny blue like their ancestors*** Slug ships are a purplish-grey metal, with their Type B being dull red and olive-green. Their type C cruiser is a golden yellow.*** Zoltan ships are bright green with orange viewports, with their Type B cruiser being dark and multicolored with glowing white viewports. Their Type C is a dark gray with glowing white viewports.*** Engi ships are metallic grey. Their Type B is maroon. Their Type C is a smoother, shiny metallic grey.*** Lanius ships are a metal gray while their Type B is deep purple with red structures between the plates.* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:** Weapons that can fire multiple shots will only target one room. The computer can target multiple rooms with the same weapons. This can potentially allow them to damage or destroy several systems at once. This is especially bad with the final boss.** While rare, it's possible for enemy ships to have five layers of shielding. Player ships and the final boss max out at four.** Similarly, enemy ships can appear fielding four drones, whereas the limit for any playable ship is three.** Certain events begin with your ship being boarded, in addition to entering combat with another ship... [[ZergRush which can then board you]]. The former can even breach Zoltan Shields, which are supposed to block teleporters while active. The game will lampshade this. ''Advanced Edition'', however, introduces the Zoltan Shield Bypass augment, which you yourself can equip, and will point out that the boarders must have this augment if they're able to circumvent your Zoltan Shield, thereby averting this trope.** When the enemy is surrendering or ending combat, any weapons you fired off that haven't yet connected are guaranteed to miss. Enemy projectiles don't follow this rule.** Enemy mind control does not need active sensors to target your crew, even though you can only use the system when they are visible to your sensors. You'll notice this when you face an enemy inside a nebula, which disables all sensors, and they still control your crew even though they can't possibly see them.** The final boss outright ignores most of the game's rules, though oddly does play by the four-shield limit.*** In addition to a standard Halberd beam, it has a triple-barreled heavy laser, a triple-barreled ion cannon, and a triple-barreled missile launcher, none of which you can ever buy. Each also has its own dedicated control system and crewmember to repair it, though they are mercifully isolated from the main ship area unless you're playing on Hard.*** Killing the crew causes an advanced AI to take over, like that of a drone except much more potent, giving it automatic repair ability.*** It is immune to Level 3 sensors, which isn't that important but does prevent you from judging just how much punishment a system can take or how efficient it is.*** It can field four drones (boarding, defense, anti-ship, and beam), not only exceeding the maximum of three only certain ships have but also requiring more power than your drone system could ever use.*** It can jump even if its engines are offline, since it's a three-part battle and it needs to retreat each time.*** [[spoiler:It has an ability called Power Surge which allows it to either launch a ridiculous number of drones or fire a massive laser barrage in the second and third phases, respectively, which recharges. Finally, it's the only non-Zoltan ship with a Zoltan Shield, which is several times stronger than normal, and is the only ship able to recharge its Zoltan Shield in combat, an alternative to the laser barrage Power Surge previously mentioned.]] Exactly how advanced ARE the Rebels?* ComputersAreFast: Specifically when it comes to cloaking and drones. A cloak-equipped computer ship can activate it the instant a battle starts, preventing you from getting a shot off even with a Weapon Pre-Igniter or beaming any crew over. It can also respawn drones the instant you destroy them, so fast in fact that there is no visible interruption in service in some cases. ''Advanced Edition'' addresses the drone problem, giving them a slight delay before they can be respawned.* ConMan: The Slugs are a whole race of them.* ContinuousDecompression: Averted, insofar as a difference in air pressure will eventually even out. A hull breach or open exterior airlock will drain the air from a room and then air in adjacent rooms will start to flow into the vacant room. Unless the decompression is contained with bulkheads, eventually all connected rooms will be drained. An entire ship with open bulkheads will drain in seconds. If the ship's life support system is functional and there is no further drain, the air pressure will slowly return to normal. * ContrivedCoincidence: Lampshaded in one particularly lucky random event:-->"Holy crap! A weapon is just floating in space!"* CoolButInefficient: The Repair Arm repairs a few points of hull automatically at each jump point, at the cost of 15% of your earned scrap. Over time, this adds up to far more scrap than you would have spent if you just repaired your ship at a store or waited for an event which is cheap/free. Furthermore, if the player is taking enough damage that the augment is actually reasonably spending the scrap it's stealing, then keeping the hull intact is the least of the problems they're facing. If you are [[PowerupLetdown "awarded"]] it as part of a random event, you are well-advised [[ThatOneDisadvantage to dump it as quickly as possible.]]* CosmeticAward: While most achievements do nothing, each ship has a set of unique achievements that allow you to unlock a new layout.* CowardlyBoss: {{Justified|Trope}}. The Rebel Flagship is attempting to complete a mission that doesn't involve the player's destruction, though it won't jump away once its drive is charged like in certain enemy encounters.* CrazyPrepared: An encouraged playstyle, due to the sheer amount of SchmuckBait and the fact that choosing the same option in different playthrough can give a different outcome. You will want to have as diverse a crew and upgraded systems as possible, perhaps including weapons, to get those [[TakeAThirdOption blue options]] when dealing with the various Random Events throughout the galaxy.* CrewOfOne: A ship needs at least one living crew member to make jumps. The Engi Cruiser Type B starts with just one Engi, with drones picking up the slack for defense and repair until you can get more crew. Operating with only one crew member is extremely sub-optimal, though, as you don't get bonuses for manning systems, you can't repair systems or fight off boarders effectively, boarding enemy ships is out of question, and if anything happens to your one crew member, you lose the game. AI-controlled enemy ships don't need crew and hence can only be defeated through hull destruction. They can automatically repair their systems, all their rooms are unpressurized, and they don't need a pilot to dodge or charge their FTL drive. Their one weakness is that they cannot repair hull breaches, which due to the way repairing works means they can never repair a system if there's a breach in the room.* CripplingOverspecialisation: Many ships start out this way. In particular: ** The Type B Stealth Ship can OneHitKill most enemies in the early sectors thanks to its Glaive Beam. That is, if you can keep the beam online for its 25-second charge time, enough time for many other weapons to fire at least twice, with low-level engines and no shields, with only a 10-second cloak offering any real protection.** On the other side of the spectrum, the Type B Mantis Cruiser has only two crew, two drone slots, and no starting weapons. However, it [[StoneWall comes with powerful shields]], a four-person teleporter room, and is crewed by Mantises, who are the masters of hand-to-hand combat. They can make short work of most any ship by boarding it. If you wind up against a drone ship, however, you either have to wait for the boarding drone to slowly break and rebreak all of the robot ship's modules or just escape. Also, until you get a weapon or happen upon the Zoltan Shield Bypass augment, you are impotent against anything with a Zoltan shield.** The Rock Cruiser Type A has two missile weapons only. They are powerful and can take out ships in only 2 or 3 hits, but if you run out you can't hurt the enemy at all. An enemy with a Zoltan Shield or Defence Drones will often cost as much cash in new missiles to blow up as you get in scrap for killing it. The Slug Cruiser Type B has this problem even worse; not only does it only have missile-based weaponry, but it also lacks a medbay at the start, so healing your crew after a boarding operation requires the use of ammo-consuming Healing Bursts.** The Engi Cruiser Type A starts with an Ion Burst and an Anti-Ship Drone. If you can't keep the enemy shields permanently stunned with the Ion, the Anti-Ship drone, your only source of damage, will uselessly shoot at the enemy shields since it can shoot only one one-damage laser at a time. Because of this, it's imperative that you find a missile weapon or other shield-piercing/bypassing weapon or drone as soon as possible.** The Crystal B begins with only a 4 man teleport and 3 Crystal crewmen.* CriticalExistenceFailure: Applies to crew. Also, since [[HitPoints hull integrity]] is measured separately from SubsystemDamage, it's quite possible for a fully-functional ship to explode thanks to a stray shot.* CruelMercy: When you damage an enemy's hull enough, they'll usually offer to give you some scrap and other resources, as long as you stop shooting at them. In most cases, they'll survive, but if you've damaged their oxygen they'll die if they can't repair it, meaning you've basically doomed them anyway. A similar thing can happen if you've destroyed their doors system and set a large amount of their ship on fire, usually resulting in them burning to death slowly but surely, or their ship spontaneously exploding after you've accepted their surrender. Of course, these things can happen to you just as easily.* CrystalPrison: The Crystalmen get a variant of this as a special ability; their Lockdown power temporarily coats the room with crystals, which prevents exit or entry until the crystals are destroyed. Handy for trapping enemies in airless rooms or keeping them from responding to boarding parties.* CutsceneIncompetence:** One random event has a crazed Mantis rescued from an escape pod lash out and kill a random member of your crew instantly. Then you return to normal gameplay and fight him. Even the most physically frail race could survive at least a few seconds against that very same Mantis, which becomes apparent if his next target is of the same race as the one he just killed.** Thankfully works in your favor in one event where a ship of notoriously untrustworthy Slugs request your help repairing their oxygen system. You can choose to send over a Mantis crewman, if you have one, and he will gleefully [[PaintTheTownRed spread them on the walls]] if it turns out to be a trap. Normally, two Slugs would be a fair match even for a combat-experienced Mantis; three or more would win easily.* CutscenePowerToTheMax:** If you have a Clone Bay and lose a crewmember to certain events, they are instantly respawned, as opposed to taking however many seconds required to clone them normally. The system doesn't even have to be powered.** Some events allow your crew to teleport onboard an enemy ship as a blue option. You can do this for enemy ships with Zoltan Shields even when you don't have a bypass unit. You can also safely teleport crew to an automated ship and back with a level 1 teleporter, when in gameplay the cooldown time would kill the crew.[[/folder]]

[[folder:D-K]]* DamageSpongeBoss: [[spoiler:The final phase of the boss fight gives the boss a Zoltan shield with double the power of a normal one and the ability to restore it completely after a while. This is partly to make up for it being weaker now than in the last two phases.]]* DarkReprise: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tAShpPu6K0 Last Stand]], the Sector 8 theme, to the CutSong [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAEauHXu0s Federation]].* DeaderThanDead: The introduction of the Clone Bay and even the Backup DNA Bank augment doesn't give your crew immortality.** If your Clone Bay is taken down and you don't have the Bankup DNA Bank any crew who die or who were being cloned will die for real very quickly.** The "Zoltan Great Eye" event can see your crewman vanished from existence, regardless of your clone bay or DNA bank. There are also a few other events where you cannot clone a crewman, or they are left behind without being able to clone them.* DeathIsCheap: With the Cloning Bay, events that would kill your crew become BlackComedy instead.-->With a new-found respect for flames, your crewmember's clone stumbles out of the Clone Bay.\\The Mantis is shocked to see the crewmember it just slaughtered step out of the Clone Bay.\\The weapon detonates, sending your bomb disposal volunteer spinning off toward a nearby sun. Fortunately, your crewmember was close enough to the ship for the Clone Bay to revive them. Sheepish and apologetic, they rejoin the crew.\\Your abandoned crewmember is waiting on the ship when you return, trying not to dwell on the fate of his previous incarnation [being eaten by crazed cannibals].* DeathRay: The Anti-Bio Beam, which does no damage to ships or systems, but can kill almost any crew member in two hits. Very helpful for defeating an enemy ship while leaving the ship itself intact and thus preserving more salvageable material. The Slug Cruiser Type A is built around the use of this weapon with supporting Dual Lasers and Breach Bomb, to clear out enemy crew without destroying their ships.* DefeatMeansFriendship: If you play your cards right in the encounter with [=KazaaakplethKilik=], you can have him join your crew, direct you to a valuable supply cache, and [[spoiler:offer you the assistance of his ships, unlocking the Mantis Cruiser]].* DefectorFromDecadence: A random event has a rebel soldier teleport onboard and announce his plans to defect. Either the defector joins your crew and you fight off a ship sent to apprehend him, [[FakeDefector he turns out to be a saboteur who damages a system and springs an ambush]], [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves or you kill him immediately because his motives are suspect]].* DeflectorShields:** These are standard on most playable and enemy ships. They block nearly any laser/energy fire, and unlike [[HitPoints hull integrity]], they regenerate on their own after being knocked down.** The Zoltans have a special augment unsurprisingly called the Zoltan Shield, which comes standard on almost any ship they build. It's a non-replenishing green BeehiveBarrier that consumes no power, is independent of the ship's normal shielding system, and only gets recharged during FTL jumps. It can only take five damage, but as long as it holds, it can block any form of attack and prevent teleportation. On the downside, it takes double damage from ion weapons and can be stripped rather quickly by drone attacks or asteroids.* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The title. But probably justified as this makes the game easier to find in searches when you type in "''FTL: Faster Than Light''" instead of "FTL" or "Faster Than Light" separately.* DesperationAttack: The final boss has an ability called Power Surge it uses during the second and third phases of the battle. [[spoiler:During the second phase, Power Surge will launch a massive group of drones, though they'll go away after the surge wears off. In the third phase, will fire a barrage of heavy lasers that can overcome even a full set of shields if they all connect.]]* DestructibleProjectiles: Projectiles can occasionally collide with one another in midair, destroying both.* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything:** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um1zPzbRwO0#t=1m Believe it or not]], missiles can collide and explode in mid-space. Drones also can be destroyed this way, both yours and your enemies'. ** There is a special death message for dying during the tutorial, which can only be done by turning off shields, or intentionally running out of oxygen.** Survive long enough, and it's possible for enemy ships to run out of missiles and drones.** If your teleporter gets knocked out while your entire crew is on board the enemy ship, and then defeat the enemy crew, [[http://imgur.com/QCNnm9U your crew will take a shuttle back to your ship]].** If you manage to take out the entirety of the Flagship's crew, an advanced A.I takes over, in order to make sure you play through all three phases of the battle.** If you have a Zoltan Shield, which among other things prevent teleporters from working, and encounter a random event where some boarders are teleported to your ship, the event will play normally but the game will point out that it is a mystery how they managed to bypass the super-shield. With the addition of a purchasable Zoltan Shield bypass augment in ''Advanced Edition'', the message instead says that the boarders must possess that augment.** Ships you encounter while out of fuel will charge their FTL drive from the beginning of the battle so that if you can't beat them you aren't stuck in a stalemate forever. If you somehow manage to permanently prevent them from jumping but can't deal any more damage then eventually the ship disables its weapons and drops fuel, and [[http://i.imgur.com/iygpFTY.png even the text box is puzzled]].** Inverted with the "Crushed Pirate" event. Even if you are on a ship that doesn't have any weapons, you still get the two basic options of shooting the rocks or simply smashing the pirate ship. * DifficultButAwesome: Stealth Cruiser Type-B is normally [[CripplingOverspecialization extremely specialized]] and difficult to use in the early game--that is, until you upgrade your stealth matrix to level 3, which gives you 15 seconds of invisibility. Since almost every enemy weapon takes 12 seconds to charge and can't lock onto you during the 15 seconds you're stealthed, the combined 25 seconds of safety is plenty of time to charge your [[InfinityPlusOneSword Glaive Beam]] and OneHitKill pretty much any ship through the first few sectors.* DisasterScavengers:** Your crew often finds the remains of past battles and long-empty settlements, which you then root through to get Scrap, fuel, and other resources.** The Lanius in the ''Advanced Edition'' are a race of this, they commonly reside in abandoned sectors in the wake of interstellar conflicts, the evidence of which [[SarcasmMode mysteriously]] disappear.* DiscOneNuke: ** There's a reason the Crystal Cruiser is a considered a GameBreaker. Its weapons ignore one level of shields and don't use ammo, making it trivially easy to beat the early sectors. This is mitigated slightly by being the only non-missile weapon which can be intercepted by a Mk. I Defense Drone, but most enemy layouts will not have such a drone in the early sectors. Crystal crew members also make for a powerful boarding crew should you choose to go down that path, so much so that the B layout of their ship is based around that strategy. That said, the process for unlocking this craft is so convoluted and improbable that you might as well have won a minor lottery if you get it.** The Rock Cruiser Type B "Shivan" starts out with Fire Bombs, a unique Heavy Piercing Laser and a strong Rock crew. The HPL is incredibly effective early on, charging fairly quickly and ignoring one layer of shields, while taking no ammunition and not being vulnerable to Mk I Defense Drones. While it becomes less effective later on, it's strong enough to the point where you can collect the supporting crew and a teleporter to assemble your Rocks into a fire-augmented nigh-unstoppable boarding crew for the late game, or else acquire further weaponry to help combat more heavily defended foes. It does have 2 disadvantages: no airlock and no door control. This means that you can't hurt enemies by opening airlocks, and no way to contain fire or extinguish them unless you divert crews from their position to stop it.** The Zoltan Cruiser Type B "Noether" starts with two Ion Blasts and a Pike Beam, which given an experienced weapons officer is actually ''enough firepower to bring down the boss''. The two ion weapons can quickly and efficiently disable enemy shields and keep them down, and you can even divert one to disabling enemy weapons once that's done. And the Pike Beam meanwhile can do widespread and severe damage to the now-defenseless enemy, as it cannot be dodged and is the longest and most energy-efficient beam weapon in the game. More heavily shielded enemies take longer but can eventually still be rendered defenseless and cut down. Throw in a laser, an extra ion weapon, and/or an attack drone and you're pretty much set. The downside to the initial firepower of course is that your normal shields need to be upgraded before they can properly function, and you depend entirely on your Zoltan shield and evasion at the start, which can lead to hairy situations in fights against drone-heavy enemies or in asteroid fields, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs fighting drone-heavy enemies]] ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs in]]'' [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs an asteroid field]].** The Mantis Cruiser Type B starts with no weapons at all, but its two-layer shield, four-person teleporter, defense drones and starting crew of two Mantises make it trivially easy to defeat almost any ship, earning plenty of scrap for weapons and other upgrades.** The Human type B ship, the Red-Tail, starts off with four Basic Lasers, single-shot lasers with a charge time of 10 seconds. While each one is weak on their own, four of them at the same time allows you to inflict more damage than a Burst Laser II, but with less recharge time. In fact, it's not even necessary to target the shields on single-shield enemies for the first two sectors since you can still do pretty reasonable damage with three lasers; sometimes you can even shut down an enemy's weapons before they can fire ''at all''. Later on, swap them out for Burst Laser I's or II's to pile up the damage some more. Crewmembers manning weapons gaining experience each time ''each weapon fires'' -- meaning you often max out the gunner before Sector 3 or 4 -- is a bonus.** Getting a Chain Vulcan drop early on with one of the ships who start with 3 or 4 Weapon Power (Kestrel B, Zoltan B, Stealth B, for example) can make the game trivially easy as the Vulcan is a good enough weapon to take down the ''flagship'' on its own, giving the player the ability to concentrate their scrap spending on shields, engines and defence drones.* DissonantSerenity: Your Mantis crewman shows this on one blue event.--> Almost expecting this, your Mantis calmly responds to the trap. Once a couple of the Slugs have been spread across the walls of their ship, the rest surrender.* DistressCall: One of the main things you'll be looking for on the star map are the distress beacons, at least when your ship is in good repair. On average, they provide better rewards than a regular beacon, and more trouble, too. If you run out of fuel, you can send one out for a better chance at rescue, though this can backfire into a more difficult battle.* DrawingStraws: When you choose to send a crewman to slavers or to defuse a mine with a missile, they draw straws.* DroneDeployer: While all ships have the ability to send out drones, Engi ships are particularly focused on drone-combat. In fact, Engi Cruiser Type B starts with ''three'' drones and only one lonely crew member. * DrunkWithPower: In a Zoltan sector, you can find a "wise man" who has figured out how to use a spacial rift and has been driven mad with power. He makes a Rockman, Slug, or Mantis ship appear to fight you should you gaze into the rift. When you win and contact him, he gets very angry and implodes.* DummiedOut: By looking through the Data.dat XML files you can see data for sectors not included in the main game such as abandoned sectors and quarantine sectors which would reduce fleet pursuit speed like in nebula sectors, and even data left behind to show that each sector was supposed to have a unique name. There's also an additional "Ghost" race, which has 50% less health but can survive without oxygen.* EasyModeMockery: In a minor way. The in-game achievements list the difficulty level you unlocked them on.* EarlyGameHell: Runs the gamut of straight to aversion of the trope depending on which ship you pick, and your general luck in what enemies are generated in each game run.** The main reason the early game can be much harder than the late game is that your defenses are relatively weak, and you start with very little engine power. As a result, if you run into a nasty ship, it will take a long time to charge the FTL to run away, and they may well destroy your low-level piloting or engines system to keep you in the fight for even longer.** The Unidentified and Rock cruisers have the sheer firepower to destroy any early game ship, and Mantis cruisers are easier to blast through the early game with their ability to slaughter the enemy crew with ease, as early game ships lack the numbers of crew ''and'' the medbays that make them able to better resist a Mantis boarding party, or just a boarding drone.** The Stealth cruiser on the other hand is a very hard ship to use in the early game. Neither variant of the ship has shielding, relying on engine and cloaking modules to increase the soft counter of evasion against attack, instead of the hard counter of shielding. Taking one bad hit can cripple its ability to withstand punishment.** The Vortex, Engi Cruiser layout B, has trouble fighting enemies in ''Sector One''. It has massive drawbacks (no internal sensors, sub-par weaponry, and a single Engi as your "crew") and very little positives (your drones move a little faster... and that's about it).* EliteMook: Some of the heavier enemies you come across; Zoltan Energy Bombers, Mantis Bombers, Slug Assaults, and the rarely-seen Rock Assaults all qualify. And the Rebels have of course have a massive fleet of Elite Fighters chasing you the whole time.* EnemyCivilWar: The Mind Control system turns one crewmember against their friends.* EnemyScan: Sensors grant additional information about enemy ships when upgraded. Level 2 lets you see inside enemy ships, and fully upgrading lets you see the exact state of enemies' systems, along with their power distribution. ''Advanced Edition'' adds the ability to track the charge status of weapons at Level 3.* EnergyBeings: The Zoltan. They give one bar of power to whatever system they're currently in, but are more fragile than the other races at 70 health instead of the usual 100. In ''Advanced Edition'', they explode on death, dealing 15 damage to everyone in the room.* EnergyWeapons: Three main categories. First there are the "lasers", which fire one or more projectiles of energy that do hull and system damage, can be blocked by shields but weaken them, and like all projectiles, can be dodged. Then there are the "beams", which fire energy beams that cannot be dodged and do damage based on the number of rooms they hit, often requiring careful aiming of the beam path. Their damage is reduced by 1 for every layer of shields they have to pass through, however, and they don't have any weakening effect on the shields themselves. Then there are ion weapons, which fire blue projectiles of energy that can disable enemy systems on impact but do no hull damage. If they hit shields, it's as if they hit the ship's shielding system, and hence their disabling effect is applied to the shield generator. ''Advanced Edition'' adds an ion subset, stun, which has the same effect as ion weapons but also causes anyone in the affected room to be stunned for a short period. The projectiles are yellow to differentiate them from normal blue ion shots.* EpicFail: ** It is possible to die during the VideoGameTutorial. This requires venting your entire ship of oxygen or turning your shields off, two actions that are completely unnecessary to completing the tutorial. The game gives out a NonstandardGameOver for this.** Another form can happen if you pull off a massive AlphaStrike and you, due to a combination of heavy shields and shots missing, fail to damage the enemy at all.* EscortMission: Some ships you encounter along the way will give you some payment if you agree to lead them to a certain area in space and usually fight someone for them when you get there. Luckily you don't have to actually take care of said spaceships and they don't mind if you agree to help and don't bother jumping to their destination.* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Everything in the universe seems to have a grudge against your poor ship--from slavers and pirates to asteroids and suns. There are some exceptions--occasionally you'll encounter Federation loyalists who give you free stuff, people thanking you for saving them, and some aliens who will be nice to you if you help them or prove your worth to them.* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Slug, Mantis and Rockmen alien races are literally races of giant slugs, mantises and men made out of rock.* ExcusePlot: With the victorious Rebel fleet in hot pursuit, you must BringNewsBack to the last of TheFederation forces. Or, much more likely, [[NintendoHard die trying]]. Have fun!* ExpansionPack: ''Advanced Edition''.* ExpendableClone: The entire point of the clone bay, especially where boarding is concerned. Your crew won't be as strong and they can't heal nearly as well, but as long as it is active you can just keep sending replacements until you win. Zoltan crew work especially well with this tactic, as their ActionBomb ability does damage to all the crew in the room they die in, making up for their lower health.* ExplosiveDecompression: {{Averted}}. Hull breaches and open airlock doors will cause air to leak out complete with hissing sound effect, but won't affect your crew until asphyxia starts draining their health.* FantasticRacism:** The Rebels are very human supremacist; on occasion they'll let you go ''provided your crew is entirely human,'' and it's mentioned that the war has made things hard on the Engi.** The Rockmen tend to be very distrustful of other races, and find them "repugnant". They'll help you only if you impress them in various ways, such as, by surviving the heat of a red giant star, by showing them advanced sensor data, or even by saving them from arranged marriages.** Even the generally affable Engi can become distrustful of aliens, at least when it comes to matters of highly sensitive technology.** A special case for the Mantis, who view all other races as prey. Mantis individuals even specialize in hunting members of specific races.* FasterThanLightTravel: It's in the game's name. The "jump drive" variety of FTL seems to be in effect, with the common subtrope of a ship being stuck in harm's way while waiting for the jump drive to charge playing a major role. You progress through the game by jumping from one "navigation beacon" to the next, encountering a random event at each. If you get into a dangerous situation, you can try to hold out long enough for your engines to charge, and then make a HyperspeedEscape--as long as your FTL drive doesn't get disabled, and as long as you have fuel.* FinalBossPreview: In ''Advanced Edition'', you can come across an unfinished secondary Rebel Flagship in the Rebel Stronghold sector. It is roughly equivalent to the third phase of the FinalBoss, except the weapon rooms aren't isolated (unless you're playing on Hard, in which case this is irrelevant), it has no power surge ability, and there is no AI takeover if you kill the crew. It also only has five crew. You get a rather hefty reward for beating it, especially if you do so by killing the crew. The battle serves as the new unlock quest for the Federation cruiser.* FinalDeath: For [[AnyoneCanDie crew members]] and for [[GameOver the ship itself]]. You can only save if you exit the game. On the plus side, destroyed systems can always be repaired, and as long as you've got one hull point left, you can repair up to full. The Clone Bay subsystem in the ''Advanced Edition'' will clone dead crewmembers after a short wait, based on how much power it has, but cloned crewmembers take a hit to their skills and its mutually exclusive with the medbay. You can also still lose them if the clone bay stays offline for too long, unless you have the DNA Bank augment.* FluffyTheTerrible: Since names are randomly selected from a naming pool, you'll often recruit dangerous Mantises or gargantuan Rockmen with names like "Butters" or "Stick".* FrickinLaserBeams: Of both the "incremental bursts that are actually projectiles" and the "slice through a ship's armor like a knife" varieties.* TheFundamentalist: Rock culture involves a lot of this. Zoltan government is a cross between fundamentalist preaching, a pacifistic culture, and red-tape bureaucracy, [[{{Irony}} the latter of which causes a lot of senseless violence]].* GadgeteerGenius: The Engi, who are themselves ambiguously mechanical lifeforms.* GameMod: Although the game doesn't have official modding tools yet, the files are very open, simple, and easy to work with. Images are .png files, and most data is held in .xml or .txt files. Modders have already successfully modified ship layouts and added new weapons. The official game forums have a [[http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=11 subforum dedicated to modding the game]].* GameplayAndStorySegregation:** There are certain {{Random Event}}s that can leave one of your party members infected by a plague or neurotoxin. It can even happen to your Engi or Rock crew, despite them being either immune or resistant to disease as a blue option to another plague event.** The quest to unlock the Zoltan cruiser requires you to demonstrate a commitment to pacifism. As a bonus, you get a new Zoltan crewman called Envoy. Envoy is maxed out in all skills, including weapons, and you can then make Envoy your weapons officer.** Using a teleporter in blue events ignores its cooldown time. For instance, you may find an opportunity to use a basic teleporter to get onto an unmanned scout ship and get sector information, then return safely. The cooldown time on a basic teleporter is longer than the amount of time it takes for a crewman to asphyxiate in an unpressurized room.* GemstoneAssault: Crystal weapons. Crystalmen also throw crystal shards as a ranged attack.* GhostShip: ** There are a few events in the game where your crew finds an apparently empty ship... things may or may not end badly for one of your crewmembers.** Also, there was a ''literal'' GhostShip event that was planned, but never finished, involving a ship crewed by ghosts. Sadly, the unfinished nature meant that "Ghost" characters were almost completely DummiedOut, nonexistent except for save-file editing and a single natural occurrence in the FinalBoss fight (an invincible and invisible Ghost provides the "Advanced AI" for the Flagship).* GlassCannon: The Stealth Cruiser starts out with a cloaking device, strong sensors and powerful weapons, but no shields. Its Type B variant takes this UpToEleven, trading engine strength and a defensive augmentation for the devastating Glaive Beam. See CripplingOverspecialisation above.* GodzillaThreshold:** When your ship is invaded by more attackers than you even have crew, suddenly setting off a firebomb inside your own ship seems like a good alternative.** Similarly, if your sensors go out during a boarding or fire, venting your entire ship suddenly starts to look like a pretty good idea.** For the Type B Rock ship, it could actually be considered beneficial to use a breach bomb on an empty room so you have a way to vent the ship of air in an emergency.** Story-wise, the entire game takes place well past the threshold. If you want the Federation to survive, you have to do whatever it takes to get to them. Destroying defenseless ships for the scrap, taking bribes from slavers and pirates, ignoring those in need of assistance...it's all fair game.* GracefulLoser: Many of the enemy ships you encounter will surrender to you when low on health, offering you to let them live in return for scrap, missiles and/or fuel. For some reason, however, they will never demand your surrender, so if your ship is losing a fight, you will have to jump away or die fighting.* GreatOffscreenWar: The game begins when the Rebels have nearly won, so you've skipped through much of the conflict until the end, when you warn the last Federation fleet. There are also mentions of a previous war with the Mantis race, many of whom still despise humans for this reason. On Earth, parents still tell their children of the blood-red ships that invaded the planet.* GuideDangIt: Several of the ships have quite specific requirements to unlock, and the game gives sparse--if any--hints as to what those requirements are. The Crystal Cruiser is a particularly notorious example.* GunboatDiplomacy: There are a few events where if you have enough levels in weapons, you have the option to power up your weapons at someone to get what you want. In one case, there is a struggling ship trying to move cargo which puts up the last of its shields when it sees you. You power up your weapons as a show of force, but you don't get the items for free--you just open a store. Curiously, this event is marked "store" on the map, so your threatening gesture is automatic.* HealingShiv: There's a bomb that heals your crew.* HelloInsertNameHere: This is the case for your starting crew, opening the floodgates for players to go for obvious choices such as [[{{Series/Firefly}} Mal, Wash and Kaylee]], or [[{{Anime/CowboyBebop}} Spike, Jet and Faye]]. That dusty old Kestrel can very well be named [[{{Series/Firefly}} Serenity]].** In ''Advanced Edition'', you can now rename any crew at any point in the game, leading to such oddities as taking named characters, such as Kazaaak or Robert Smith, and arbitrarily giving them new names.* HeroicSacrifice: It's possible for your ship to be destroyed when you destroy the Flagship, winning the war for the Federation but dying in the process. That said, the Flagship needs to be destroyed in the small window of time before the GameOver popup shows up--even if the Flagship is a burning wreck with 1 point of hull left and systems that can be destroyed to cause hull damage, you still lose if it takes too long after your ship blows up for the Flagship to go down as well.* HiddenElfVillage: [[spoiler: The secret Crystal Sector.]]* HitPoints: Your ship's hull integrity. Individual crew have their own hit point totals as well.* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Opening the airlocks to asphyxiate fires or boarders can easily turn into this. If you door control unit goes down, you can't close the airlocks, and if your oxygen gets shut off, you can't repressurize.* HoldTheLine: To unlock the Rock ship, you have to meet the ship at a node with a nearby sun, then wait for it to jump away and follow it to its base. Destroying it or killing the crew nets you nothing, and it will shoot at you while its jump drive charges. You ''can'' shoot it to disable its weapons, so long as the ship survives.* HoldYourHippogriffs: At a Zoltan trade hub, if you try entering without a blue option, the result may be text saying your ship is like "a Casvagarian Sea Slug in a Plutonian Shrimp Stew", and you will get boarders and have to fight a Zoltan ship.* HonorBeforeReason: If you make a deal to spare somebody, you take only their bribe and leave them alone, even if they blow up, which would allow you to scavenge the ship otherwise.* HopelessBossFight: Supposedly. In the early Alpha builds there was a NighInvulnerable pirate ship that stopped players from advancing past Sector 2. Not that this stopped Ohmwrecker from defeating it and getting his name in the random crew names.* HordeOfAlienLocusts: ** The Mantis, giant alien... well, mantises that are stated to be the most aggressive and antagonistic race in the game. However, they aren't hive-minded, concerned with consuming everything, and [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch have plenty of reasonable members you can recruit]].** One random event lets you board a station to fight back an invasion of [[GiantSpider giant alien spiders]].** The Lanius, debuting in the ''Advanced Edition,'' fit this mold better than the actual space bugs. They regularly enter periods of hibernation and reawaken when large metal deposits make themselves available, like a galactic war providing lots of tasty debris, then set about consuming it all. Apparently they do have rules that forbid attacking the ships of living sapients. However, this is not the most popular policy, and a lot of Lanius you encounter disregard this. Tellingly, Mantis zones are labeled as such; it's their home territory. Lanius territory, though, is listed as ''abandoned''.* HumanPopsicle: Or Alien Popsicles in this case. Some random events have you reawaken aliens from stasis, such as the one that gets you a [[spoiler:Crystal crew member]].* HumansAdvanceSwiftly: In the ''Advanced Edition'', humans learn skills 10% faster to make up for having no other special abilities.* HumansAreAverage: In the base game, humans are the only crew race to have [[JackOfAllStats no inherent advantages or disadvantages]]. The game describes them as "common and uninteresting".* HyperspeedAmbush: Everyone in space apparently uses the same hyperspace beacon coordinates so it's not uncommon to find yourself in an ambush after a jump. Pirates and slavers also occasionally set up fake distress beacons to lure in victims.* HyperspeedEscape: If a battle gets too tough and the player waits long enough for the engines to get ready again, he can jump to hyperspace mid-battle. Enemy ships will sometimes attempt the same, unless you disable their piloting or engines. The Rebel Flagship will do this twice to repair and power different systems.* HypnoRay: The Mind Control system introduced in ''Advanced Edition'', allowing you to turn enemy crew into allies for a limited time.* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Of course, sometimes you need to make tough decisions. If you just barely survived a fight against a Rebel and you need scrap to repair your hull NOW, you will probably have to take whatever fuel and Scrap the pirate will give you or risk getting killed. You're not going to like it at times, but Rule #1 is '''survive'''. * ImmuneToMindControl: Beings from the Slug race in are telepathic, which, on top of being able to influence minds themselves, renders them immune to mind control.* ImpossibleThief: In Slug-controlled sectors, you can encounter a Slug captain who beams aboard your ship and offers you an unidentified drink. One of the possible results of accepting the drink is finding yourself drugged, allowing the Slugs to steal some scrap from your cargo hold. The amount stolen is not limited by the amount of scrap in your possession, and sometimes you lose more scrap than you had in the first place.* IncendiaryExponent: Rockmen when invading ships in conjunction with fire weapons. They're immune to fire. And the enemy ship and crew, unless they're also Rockmen, are not.* InsectoidAliens: The Mantis.* InstantSedation: The worst outcome from accepting the Slug captain's drink is that you are quickly knocked out by the heavy anesthesia, and when you awake, you find out that the Slug stole your supplies.* InstantWinCondition: Dealing the death-blow on the third stage of the Rebel Flagship fight means you win, even if your crew and/or ship is on the brink of death itself. Your ship can even be blown apart first, as long as the Flagship is destroyed within a few seconds after (before the "game over" popup appears).* InterruptedIntimacy: In Engi space, you may come across two Engi ships smashed together and surrounded by debris, and you wonder if they need help. If you try to pry them apart, one of them will attack you. Then it's explained that you interrupted a "union" that was in the process of creating another ship. (If, instead, you ask an Engi crew member to help them, your Engi will embarrassedly refuse and explain what they're doing.)* JackOfAllStats: Humans have no particular perks or penalties, which makes them good for manning stations. The ''Advanced Edition'' plays this up by giving them a 10% boost to skill gain. The Kestrel, the default ship, has average stats across the board, is crewed by three humans, and can make good use of almost any gear you find. The Type B version gets a more rounded-out crew (a Zoltan and a Mantis plus two humans).* JerkassHasAPoint: While most events or fights have a clear cut "profit from somebody else's pain" angle, slavers offering to give you a slave for their freedom do have a very valid point: If you don't have a boarding crew or anti-bio beam, you're going to kill everyone on board if you don't let them go.* KaizoTrap: It's possible to get your ship destroyed at the same time you beat an enemy ship, which still counts as a GameOver. Unless it's against the third phase of the Rebel Flagship, in which case the game throws you the victory.* KeystoneArmy: Destroying the Flagship of the Rebels cripples the fleet trying to destroy the last Federation base, winning the game.* KillItWithFire: There are several weapons designed to light an enemy ship on fire, the most prominent being the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Fire Beam]]. Fire destroys equipment, consumes oxygen, hurts crew members (except for Rocks) and worst of all, ''spreads''. That small fire in the security room can quickly turn into a blaze consuming half the ship. One achievement requires setting every square of an enemy ship on fire.[[/folder]]

[[folder:L-R]]* LanguageBarrier: Between the Lanius and pretty much everyone else. This causes problems, especially considering the Lanius' first instinct is to eat the ships of everyone they meet.* LampshadeHanging: Even if you are in a Zoltan ship with your special Zoltan shield holding, which is supposed to prevent missiles, bombs and boarders teleporting onto your ship, you can still get the "attackers board your ship" events, with the game only mentioning, "You don't know how they got past your Zoltan shields!". That said, you still can't be boarded by actual enemy ''ships'' while your Zoltan shields are up, just by random events.** Advanced Edition adds a new augmentation that lets you board past enemy Zoltan shields.*** This ship augment also works for bomb weapons and the Mind Control system also added by Advanced Edition. This also allows Advanced Edition to avert this trope by saying that they must have had said ship augment. * LastStand: Sector 8, whereupon you and the Federation [[spoiler:face down the massively advanced Rebel Flagship]]. It's even ''called'' "The Last Stand" in-game.* LawfulStupid: The Zoltan. They are members of the Federation your ship is on a mission to help save and are considered peaceful. They will also constantly harass you with legal requests and government business, up to and including attempting to arrest vital crew members or ''trying to kill you over customs disputes.''** The "Unknown Disease On Mining Colony" event can result in you having to leave a crewman behind who is infected. If you have a clone bay you get this text:-->"As your crewman is still alive and working towards a cure, it would be against Federation regulation to create a clone to continue with you on your journey."* LawOfAlienNames: PlayedWith since the default name pool seems to apply to all characters regardless of species. This sometimes creates weird situations like having a female human called Pipaluk and a genderless Engi called Elizabeth on the same ship. PlayedStraight with alien {{NPC}}s, however; the Mantis in particular stand out, with names like [=KazaaakplethKilik=].* {{Leitmotif}}: The Mantis, Rockmen, Zoltan and Engi (and Slugs and Lanius in ''Advanced Edition'') have their own themes that are played in their respective sectors. In addition, there are what the composer calls Space Cruise Chords, Milkyway Melody and Conflict Theme, all of which turn up in multiple places in the soundtrack. Conflict Theme in particular is intended to represent the consequences of war, and shows up towards the end of the Mantis, Rockmen and Last Stand tracks. [[http://benprunty.com/2013/07/11/a-guided-tour-through-the-ftl-soundtrack-analysis-of-themes/ See here for more information.]]* LethalLavaLand: Being at a beacon too close to a class M star behaves like this: both combatant ships will have a room or two set on fire periodically.* LimitBreak:** The Flagship has an ability called Power Surge which has several effects. It can summon a huge swarm of combat drones, fire a massive barrage of lasers, or restore its Zoltan Shield.** In ''Advanced Edition'', nodes completely under Rebel control will be within range of their anti-ship batteries. At these nodes, you'll be periodically hit by a projectile that tears through your hull, doing 3 damage and leaving a hull breach.** AE also added the Backup Battery system, which provides extra reactor power (2 or 4, depending on whether it's been upgraded) for 30 seconds.* LimitedLoadout: Depending on ship type, you can have only three or four weapons and two or three drones, and each set can only use a maximum of eight reactor points.* LittleNo: There is an event where a dreaded slug pirate asks if you know who he is and if you fear him. The only answer available is a flat "No."* LuckBasedMission: The entire game, in various ways:** Where weapons are concerned. In the later levels, higher enemy shield strength can render the starting sets of weapons unable to penetrate, while missiles will run out quickly if you're forced to fall back on them. Add on to that the larger weapon arrays, amounts of scrap necessary for upgrades and repairs, and other resource factors, and winning takes a considerable amount of favor from the RandomNumberGod. And even if you've managed to scrabble together a decent ship, [[spoiler:that won't guarantee that you can do any major damage to the Rebel Flagship.]] Normal is worse in this regard, since scrap is harder to come by. Easy, by comparison, often lets you build up a decent surplus. ** The sector map generation can screw you over if you see what should be a link of sectors to jump to the exit, only to find one link is broken, forcing a backtrack to the start. Unless you are incredibly well armed you will die, or at the very least have your end-game wrecked. There is however an in-game option that will allow you to hover your mouse over each sector to see where it links.** Most ships can be unlocked simply by finding the relevant homeworld (Stealth, Mantis, Slug, Rock, Zoltan) or beating the game normally (Engi, Federation), though the Stealth and Zoltan ships are somewhat counter-intuitive. The final ship, however, is much, much worse. First you have to find the Damaged Stasis Pod, an event which can only be found in specific sectors and even then doesn't always produce the pod. Then you have to open it, which is also an event only possible in certain sectors. ''Then'' you have to find the Rock Homeworlds, which may not even appear. '''Then''' you have to find an event in Homeworlds that will allow you to finally unlock the ship. Each attempt can take from 30 minutes to an hour. Perhaps in recognition of the feat, it is easily the best ship in the game. Mercifully, a patch made the final part of that sequence a guarantee, taking some of the edge off. ''Advanced Edition'' added an alternate unlock method that only requires winning with the previous ship on the list, or previous type for the Type C ships, making it even easier.** One achievement for the Federation ship requires you to use your crew in four blue events by sector five. Even with your diverse crew, you just have to hope you run into events which allow you to do so.** Another achievement for the Kestrel is "Have six different alien races on your crew." Nearly impossible with Kestrel A (starts with Human crew only) and a little easier with Type B (starts with three of the six races: Human, Mantis, and Zoltan). * MacrossMissileMassacre: Finally shows up in ''Advanced Edition'' with the aptly named "Swarm Missile Launcher." When fully charged, it fires three missiles for the cost of one. Additionally, an augment named "Explosive Replicator" encourages this attitude by duplicating your missiles half the time, extending your ammo by half.* MagikarpPower:** Both of the ships that are entirely focused around boarding (The Basilisk[[note]]Mantis Type B[[/note]] and especially the Carnelian[[note]]Crystal Type B[[/note]]). The first sector is often the hardest, as you have virtually no way of destroying rebel drones (The Basilisk can destroy Auto-Scouts with a Boarding Drone and patience, but the Carnelian lacks even that) and you're stuck leaving your ship entirely unmanned while you fight on the enemy ship. In addition, since the scrap yields for the first sector are naturally very low, you're not getting too much more than you do on a regular run. However, if you can make it through the first couple of sectors and pick up some non-combat crewmembers to run the ship, then you probably have a winning run on your hands.** The chain-laser series in ''Advanced Edition'' start out with a long recharge time, but it decreases with each shot, to the point where they fire faster than most weapons in the game. The Vulcan takes this to the extreme; it's a four-power, single shot laser needs to be fired five times to reach its minimum reload time of ''1.1 seconds''. That's faster than shields can recharge.* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: Oh, you've just jumped across half the universe, surviving by the skin of your teeth to bring us this vital information about the Rebel fleet? Good job. Here's some fuel and some repairs. Now go defeat their Flagship for us. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as it was mentioned that they used their fleet to fight off and distract the Rebel fleet (the one that's been chasing you all game) while you deal with the Flagship.* TheManyDeathsOfYou: You get a different message depending on how, exactly, your game ended.-->''One last explosion marks your fate as your ship is torn apart.''-->''All crewmembers have died. Your ship will continue to drift for eternity. Or until looters destroy it.''* MartialPacifist: The Zoltan at their best. At their worst, they're LawfulStupid. But not always. The quest to unlock their cruiser reveals this to be their ideal, which they hope that you also strive for.* MasterOfAll: As of ''Advanced Edition'', the special crew members you can recruit fall into this trope. If you manage to nab them, you'll find that they're fully maxed in ''all'' categories. One event can also give an Engi crewmember maxed out stats if you can beat your opponent.* MeaningfulName: "Lanius" means "Butcher" in Latin. The Lanius destroy oxygen just by being in a room and suck the metal out of their enemies' ships; they are indeed the butchers of space.* MechanicalLifeforms: The Engi race, humanoid, [[StrawVulcan logical]] androids who get bonuses to repairing.* MesACrowd: Averted with the Clone Bay. The plague event has the possibility of taking away a crewmember. If this happens and you have the Clone Bay, you won't get the crewmember back due to regulations prohibiting the cloning of someone who is still alive.* MightyGlacier: Rockmen move at half speed, but have 150% health and are immune to fire. Crystalmen are this to a lesser extent, being slower than average but faster than Rockmen, with 125% normal health and resistance to suffocation.* MinimalistRun: ** The Zoltan Cruiser achievement "Manpower" requires you to get to sector 5 without upgrading your reactor.** Federation Cruiser achievement "Artillery Mastery" requires you to get to sector 5 without upgrading your weapons.** The game has several achievements gained this way, like surviving to sector 5 without buying anything at a store or never purchasing repairs.* MookChivalry: ** Only one ship will ever attack at a time, even if the rebel fleet catches up, though in the latter case you "won't have time" to pick up any scrap, and the ships you do engage will be pretty strong, leading to a net loss of resources even if you defeat them.** Averted with ''Advanced Edition''. If you jump to a node under Rebel control (white zone, not red zone), an environmental effect called "Anti-Ship Batteries" occasionally fires an unblockable shot at your ship. Occasionally, an event may invert this, with the ASB targeting your opponent instead.* MoreDakka: Possible in the vanilla game with enough laser weaponry, but now taken UpToEleven with [[GatlingGood the Vulcan]] in ''Advanced Edition''. It takes four power to run and only fires one laser, but after you've fired it five times it fires one bolt ''per second'', easily enough to overwhelm ''any'' defense.* MutualDisadvantage: Happens often when any two ships with [[StoneWall very robust defenses]] end up fighting each other. When there is no LogicalWeakness to exploit, both ships just end up exchanging potshots with neither one able to overcome the defenses of the other.* MutualKill: A possible outcome of the final boss, if you're good enough to take out the Flagship, but not careful enough to protect yourself.* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Some members in random events can act in contrary to their species' hats. However, due to the multiple outcomes of each event, that same event in a different playthrough could have the member acting exactly how you'd expect. One great example is when a [[ConMan Slug]] ship's captain invites himself for a friendly drink. If you accept the invitation, it can either end with him thanking you for not judging him by his species by fixing your hull and opening his store to you, or him drugging you and stealing a lot of your Scrap.* NecessaryDrawback:** Lasers never need ammo and better ones can fire multiple shots, but each laser shot can be dodged or absorbed by one layer of shielding, requiring a fairly large number of lasers to overcome shielding in later levels. It is very possible to fire twice as many lasers as the enemy has shields and still fail to put a dent in the enemy ship's hull. ** Heavy Lasers do more damage per shot and can punch holes in the target's hull, but have a lower rate of fire, making them by themselves ineffective against shielded ships.** Beams never miss and do enormous damage, but have longer charge times and their damage is reduced by 1 for every shield layer it must pass through, and they cannot damage shields at all. Only two beams, Halberd and Glaive, can even penetrate a one-layer shield, which means you need other weapons to supplement them.** Missiles ignore shields, but have limited ammunition and can be dodged or shot down by defense drones. The bigger ones also take a fair amount of time to charge.** Bombs ignore shields ''and'' defense drones, but share ammo with missiles and never inflict hull damage. Some can start fires that can potentially cause hull damage, but that's only one point. Breach bombs can create hull breaches to make the system harder to repair and drive weakened crew members to retreat. All bombs take longer than missiles to charge, too, and are just as likely to miss, wasting the ammo and the long charge time.** Ion weapons disable systems, but their effects are temporary and deal no actual damage. On the plus side, they generally charge faster than most weapons, with one ion weapon having the fastest charge time of four seconds.** Offensive drones attack continuously, but are limited by your supply of drone parts and are computer-controlled. Furthermore, they can be shot away by accident by enemy weapons, while non-drone weapons can be protected by layers of shields.** Boarders allow you to wreak havoc inside an enemy ship, but AnyoneCanDie--often in [[YetAnotherStupidDeath stupid ways]] such as them destroying the enemy ship while inside it, causing their deaths, the ship getting destroyed by your own weapons if you're not careful, or the enemy jumping out with your crew members still on board.** Hull weapons will do double damage when they hit a system-less room, allowing them to inflict severe hull damage in just a few shots. In exchange, they use one more bar of power than regular weapons of their type and take slightly longer to charge, making them less viable for disabling ships. The Hull Beam also has half the beam range of the otherwise equally powerful Pike Beam.** The Federation Cruiser's [[WaveMotionGun Artillery Beam]] is independent from its other weapons, cannot miss, and ignores anything short of Zoltan shields to deal massive damage, but can't be manually controlled and counts as one of the 8 ship systems, meaning fewer additional helpful systems like cloaking or hacking can be installed. It also starts with a 50 second charge time, which takes a lot of scrap and power to upgrade into a more reasonable 20 seconds.** The Crystal cruiser has weapons which can bypass one layer of shielding, but even though it doesn't use ammo, it fires physical objects that a Mk. I Defense Drone can shoot down.** The Repair Arm will restore your ship's hull whenever you collect scrap, but you'll earn less scrap in the process, even if your ship is at full hull and there's no damage to repair.** Fire weapons do no damage by themselves, but the fires they start can cause damage in addition to forcing the enemy to put the fires out prior to affecting repairs. Fire also spreads, and can grow out of control if not managed quickly. However, only Fire Bombs and Fire Beams are guaranteed to start fires, and both take some time to charge, meaning the crew may be able to keep up with the fires if there's enough of them. An upgraded door system will also render fire virtually harmless, since it can't get past blast doors.** In the ''Advanced Edition'' expansion, the new Hacking system can shoot out a drone that attaches to the enemy hull and affects a single system. This locks the doors to that room, makes it unable to be manned by a crew member, and allows a disruption ability that makes the normal effect of the room inverted or disabled, and said disruption is reusable. However, each usage costs a single drone part, the drone cannot be moved unless it is destroyed through ion damage or hacking, and each use of the system takes as long to cool down as cloaking does. Much like boarding drones, it's also vulnerable to defense drones, though it doesn't have a cooldown period between launches.* NiceJobBreakingItHero: When you reach the [[spoiler:Crystal Home Sector]]. Before you went there, the inhabitants were peaceful and happy, relatively speaking. And then you came along, and the Rebel Fleet followed you there. Now, presumably, the [[spoiler:entire Crystal fleet is in disarray, and their home has been taken over by nasty Rebel forces. All for a shiny new ship]].* NintendoHard: Like basically all {{Roguelikes}}. One of the pre-start tips [[LampshadeHanging explicitly says]] that half the fun is dying.* NoBiochemicalBarriers: One of the {{Random Encounter}}s consists of a human-inhabited planet sending a distress signal regarding a plague. While Engi and Rockman crewmates can help out with no ill effects, other alien crewmates can't.* NoCasualtiesRun: Acknowledged by the game; reaching Sector 8 with no crew losses unlocks the "No {{Redshirt}}s Here!" achievement.* NoFairCheating: The save-backup exploit works like a charm up until you unlock a ship or an achievement. If you try saving and reloading again, that unlock or achievement will be locked again, and it'll only remain unlocked if you immediately start a new campaign with your new ship and make a new save.* NoHeroDiscount: Played straight once and subverted everywhere else. One trading outpost FlavorText states that the Federation merchant is glad to see the military is still functioning, then charges you regular prices. The rest of the time, when you come across friendly outposts or allied forces, they'll donate scrap, supplies, or nifty weapons free of charge to help with your mission.* NoItemUseForYou: ** Or system use, rather. Certain events or environmental hazards negatively affect systems. A plasma storm halves your reactor output, drones may occasionally knock out a layer of shielding, Rebel ships disable engines every so often, and Slug vessels target your medbay or oxygen. If the system has enough power, it may only be limited instead of disabled.** One event lets you do this to an enemy instead. If you are using one of the Rock cruisers, an event can allow you to {{ram|mingAlwaysWorks}} the enemy ship, which destroys the enemy ship's engines, leaving them unable to evade your attacks.** And then there's Hacking in ''Advanced Edition'', which allows you to shut down or even reverse the effect of any one of the enemy's systems for a few seconds.* NonActionGuy: Engies and Zoltan aren't very good fighters, on account of doing half damage and having 30% less health than average, respectively.* NonEntityGeneral: There is no indication of who or where ''you'' are during the game, and it is entirely possible to lose your entire starting crew without any interruption to your mission provided you always have at least ''one'' crewmember left to man the helm. With the cloning bay in ''Advanced Edition'', your ''entire crew'' can die yet this won't stop you from fighting; heck, some games have come BackFromTheBrink in the most extreme way because that single System Repair Drone the enemy didn't think to destroy fixed up the Clone Bay, bringing the entire crew back to life!* NoSell:** Rockmen are completely immune to fire damage. Exploit this by using fire weapons along with boarding parties.** Lanius don't need oxygen at all, and in fact drain it from the room they're in, making them immune to asphyxiation.** Zoltan Shields block any attempts at teleporting, boarding, or Mind Controlling, at least while they're active.** Slugs are immune to the MindControlDevice, since they're psychics.** Clone Bays allow you to NoSell several events that kill your crew outright. The infamous CutsceneIncompetence example of releasing a crazed Mantis from the escape pod notes the shocked expression he makes as he sees the person he just bisected stroll in from the next room. However, there are a few exceptions, such as a crew member being left behind deliberately by an event or being infected by a fatal disease from a damaged space station.* NonStandardGameOver: ** If you fail to intercept the Rebel Flagship during the Last Stand.--->''The Rebel Flagship is within range of the Federation Base. All is lost, they've won.''** If you fail the tutorial, the game gives out a special message informing you that while you're free to try again, [[EpicFail "this doesn't bode well for your mission."]]* NotActuallyCosmeticAward: The alternate layouts often feature new weapon loadouts, crew rosters, and different systems. For example, the Kestrel Type B has four crew, two of which are non-human, compared to the three humans of the base layout.* NoTrueScotsman: Several random events end up with you the victim of FantasticRacism, with aliens belittling or outright attacking you. Understandable when your ship is of a human design and the few members of their species onboard could be considered [[CategoryTraitor Species Traitors]], but this happens even if you're the both the same type of ship and only have members of the same species as the aggressors. Looks like they must not consider you true members if you dare work with the Federation, even if it is to take down a mutual threat.* ObliviousAdoption: One event has you help a some perplexed Engi customs officers detaining "Robert Smith," a panicked Mantis who's utterly convinced he's a human. If you have a human who can convince him to calm down (or a Mind Control system), you return him home, where you find out that he's HappilyAdopted by a human family of engineers.* OneWingedAngel: [[spoiler:The Flagship's second form. It loses the cloak and the triple ion cannon, but gains ''insane'' drone capacity and the horrendous Drone Swarm. The one winged part might be a bit literal in the sense that the ship lost its left wing-like nacelle after the first phase.]]* OrangeAndBlueMorality: The Engi tend to value knowledge and technology over their individual members. There is at least one random event where the Engi would actually prefer you save their drone schematics rather than their lives. They will still thank you, however, if and when you do save their lives, and will often reward you with scrap and technology. They may also join your crew.* OverratedAndUnderleveled: The famous Mantis pirate, [=KazaaakplethKilik=], shivers your timbers at the mere mention of his name. With the right preparation, you are able to [[DefeatMeansFriendship defeat him and have him join your crew]]. He starts with no extra skills, just like any other ordinary Mantis to join you.** Averted as of ''Advanced Edition'': He now starts with all skills at maximum.* PaddedSumoGameplay: If you dump all of your scrap into upgrading shields and/or engines but don't acquire or upgrade offenses, and neither you nor your opponents have missiles, both ships will be stuck this way. It is possible to jump away from an unwinnable battle, go through a sector or two to upgrade, and return, though the Rebel fleet will likely continue toward you.* PaintTheTownRed: When a Slug ship asks for your help about their broken oxygen system, you can let your Mantis see what's going on, at which point it's obvious nothing's wrong with the system. Once the Mantis spreads a few Slugs across the walls, they surrender.* PauseScumming: Absolutely critical as it allows you to synchronize all of your weapons into a single deadly AlphaStrike or micromanage crew positioning in hand-to-hand combat. Alongside using one of the [[JokeCharacter weaker ships]], deliberately choosing ''not'' to pause is one of the biggest [[SelfImposedChallenge self-imposed challenges]] you can give yourself.* PercussiveMaintenance: The Rockmen style of repair. Also possibly the only depiction in fiction that has ever applied this to fighting fires, since the Rockmen jump on fire to put them out. The same goes for Crystalmen, being a reskin of them.* PerpetualStorm: Nebulae last forever (or at least as long as you are within the sector). Ion storms, which happen within Nebulae will always last the duration of the battle, but can clear up if you're out-of-fuel and have to wait inside the storm.* PetTheDog: The automated fueling drones. As only the rebel fleet deploys unmanned spacecraft, it means they have set up a system that will help anybody needing fuel, assuming they're willing to pay for it.* PlanetOfHats: The Mantis are a ProudWarriorRace of SpacePirates, the Rockmen are [[TheFundamentalist religious]] and territorial, the Zoltan are peaceful but [[ObstructiveBureaucrat bureaucratic]], the Engi are [[AmbiguousRobots possibly robotic]] and [[TheStoic stoic]], and the Slugs are [[ManipulativeBastard backstabbing]], [[TheHedonist hedonistic]], [[OnlyInItForTheMoney capitalistic]] [[AlwaysChaoticEvil assholes]]. [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch Among your crew, however]], all races are helpful and can be made to be different from the rest, i.e. your Slug crew sees into adjacent rooms when your sensors are down, you have a boarding party of Engi, and so on.* PoorCommunicationKills: ** Occasionally, battles will be triggered by you being unable to respond to a transmission from another ship, with your silence being mistaken for hostility. This usually happens with Engi ships, which generally don't attack you unless they've been hijacked by pirates or Mantises.** Occurs often with the Lanius. In one sterling example, you find a ship begging for help against a Lanius ship apparently trying to harvest it. You can either destroy it, or through a blue option find out that the ship is a merchant ship trying to dock, which then allows you to trade.** In an Engi sector, you may come across two Engi ships apparently smashed together. If you try to pry them apart, one of them will become hostile and attack you. Using an Engi crew blue option will reveal that the two ships are... making a baby ship, and neither vessel in any danger.* PopQuiz: In a Slug nebula, there may be a distress beacon shown on the map, but when you go to it, you track the signal to a number of moons orbiting a planet. A Slug marooned on one of the moons tests you by asking how many there are, so if you weren't paying attention and skipped through the text, you can only guess. If you guess wrong, the Slug steals your supplies, while guessing right will get you a Slug crewman.* PowerupLetdown: The Repair Arm repairs a few points of hull automatically at each jump point, but you get a 15% scrap reduction as long as its installed. Compare to the Scrap Recovery Arm, which gives you a 10% scrap bonus which you can then spend at a shop to repair your ship for less scrap than the Repair Arm consumes.* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Rockmen and Mantis.* PressStartToGameOver: ** Newbie players on Easy, and even experienced players on Normal can suffer devastating defeats in the first sector if they get bad luck or pick the wrong ship. The Captain's Edition GameMod makes it even harder.** The Engi B cruiser starts with only one crew member. If your first jump results in an event with options that can result in crew loss, it's possible to die right there and then for an instant game over, without even getting into a battle.* PsychicPowers: Slug crewmen use these, revealing enemy and ally crew positions even if your ship's sensors are damaged. They can also see into adjacent rooms. Essentially, they have life form-detecting PsychicRadar. In ''Advanced Edition'', their status as telepaths make them immune to mind control.* PunyEarthlings: The Slug crews have the same exact statistics as humans, but with the extra benefit of having PsychicPowers. * PurelyAestheticGender: Human crew can be male or female, giving them different sprites. The alien races all either don't have gender, or they just look the same, with {{Palette Swap}}s to tell them apart. Going by the various in-game texts, Engi and Zoltan seem to be the former, and Mantises, Slugs, and Rockmen (and the Rockmens' ancestors, the Crystals) are likely the latter. The Lanius are anyone's guess.* PunchClockVillain: Numerous encounters qualify. Of particular note are Rebel ships whose captain will say that he'd ''rather'' fight for the Federation given the chance, but since they lost and [[OldSoldier fighting is all he knows how to do]], he'll continue to fight [[IFightForTheStrongestSide on the Rebels' side]].* RammingAlwaysWorks: One hostile encounter involves a Mantis pirate ship decorated with Rock body parts. If you're flying the Rock Cruiser, you get the option to "ram the bastards" before the fight, disabling their engines. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that the Rock Cruiser's Rock Armor can totally take it.* RandomEvent: You almost get one at ''every'' jump beacon, which can result in everything from combat, to trading options, to situations that present you with an option to intervene or ignore it and keep moving. You can, however, get no activity at all, and [[spoiler:the final boss is not a random event, for obvious reasons.]]* RealTimeWithPause: This is how ship and personnel combat pans out. Use it wisely. The iPad version has an option to automatically pause when you aim, select crew movements or use door controls because of the additional dexterity using the touch screen.* RecruitingTheCriminal: One random event has a Mantis fugitive teleporting onto your ship and begging for refuge from the Engi ship pursuing him. Sometimes, he's sincere, and he joins your crew to help fend off the Engi trackers; other times it turns out [[SchmuckBait he can't believe you fell for that, and he sabotages a system while the Mantis-operated Engi ship ambushes you]].* RedAlert: {{Downplayed}}; all rooms are equipped with a red light that blinks in case of fire or hull breach.* RegeneratingHealth: Segmented regeneration for systems. If a reactor bar for the system is partially damaged by enemy boarders or fire, it will instantly snap back to full health as soon those disappear from the room the system is in. Also inverted for repairs, if the repairers will exit the room without fully restoring a bar, it will likewise instantly snap back to fully damaged.* RegeneratingShieldStaticHealth: Systems can be repaired, but hull damage can only be restored by events, going to a store, or using one of the rare and moderately expensive Hull Repair drones--which can only be used if you have a Drone System and consumes one Drone Part to restore between 3 and 5 hull.* ResourcesManagementGameplay: Not only will you need to watch out for your fuel, missile and drone-part supplies, but also for the power distribution of your ship. Careful management is critical in order to achieve victory.* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The Rebels are the bad guys. At the beginning of the game, they've already defeated TheFederation. Now you're on a run through alien-controlled space to reach and regroup with whatever little Federation-loyal forces remain.* RidiculouslyHumanRobots / StarfishRobots: The Engi, being made of lots of nanomachines, manage to be both of these at different times. They have a lot of human-like sensibilities about them and usually assume a bipedal form [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith presumably to make their human allies more comfortable]]. However, one filler event in Engi sectors describes Engi becoming vortices in order to work on special machines.* RobotMaster: The Engi, possibly as a result of their partly-mechanical nature and their MachineEmpathy. They make heavy use of drone systems, and their ships coming pre-installed with drones and have 3 drone slots as opposed to the 2 of every other playable ship. The lone Engi who pilots the Type B Engi Cruiser fits this trope particularly well, as he commands a 'crew' composed entirely of robots.* RockMonster: The Rockmen, whose bodily materials give them 150% health but limit their speed. [[spoiler: Ditto for Crystalmen, who are Rockmen's ancestor.]]* RunawayFiance: The "Wife of The Grand Basilisk of Numa V" event in the Rock Homeworlds has one. You can escort her to her destination, at which point you can either hand her over in exchange for scrap and an augment ([[WhatTheHellPlayer "May your children erode to dust!"]]), or you can refuse, which draws the ire of the Basilisk's escorts but has the rebellious fiancé join your crew.[[/folder]]

[[folder:S-Z]]* SaveScumming: Normally restricted, because a single save file is only made upon quitting the game and is actually deleted on loading. However, if you can quit the game, find the save file, set it to "read only," and don't mind the tedium of quitting/restarting the game, you can load and reload until you get a set of outcomes that favour you. Of course, even then, the game's UnstableEquilibrium often means that you'll have to start over anyway.* ScavengerWorld: Not the ''whole'' galaxy, but definitely large portions of it, considering scrap is the universal currency of outer space.* SceneryGorn: When a ship explodes, it will split spectacularly into a detailed multi-piece wreck. This can [[GameOver happen to your ship]].* SchmuckBait:** A common encounter in Slug sectors. Many events involve suspiciously generous offers, most of which turn out to be ruses to sabotage your ship. On the other hand, choosing the exact same option in said situation in a different playthrough CAN give different outcomes. For instance, a Slug trader talks to you about special deal for his wares for a while only to be revealed as distracting you from his mates looting your ship. The next time you meet him, choosing to talk to him instead have him appreciate your trust in him and give you some extra bonus. So the only way to know whether it's really a SchmuckBait or not is to take it.** The many encounters where you find a person of questionable motives or sanity seeking to join your crew. Sometimes they'll join without incident, but it's equally likely that they'll be saboteurs/completely insane and kill a random crew member, lead you into an ambush, or both.* SchrodingersGun: If you pick up a quest towards the end of a sector, generally the quest will carry over to the next sector, unless you're in sector 7, in which case the quest will simply cancel out. What if there's a fork and you have to choose between two sectors, you ask? The sector you choose will be the one containing the quest marker.** Also, there are several random events where you can choose to take a risk and either get a decent reward or induce accidents that lose resources and crewmembers. These events often have special responses, marked by blue text, that allow you to avoid the dangers of the event. If you choose a blue option, the following text always describes the dangerous result and how your choice protected you from it (even though half the time choosing the normal option wouldn't result in any danger) making it seem as if the blue option caused the danger to happen.*** One example is when a Slug transport sends a distress signal asking for help with life-support. Normally they either pay you handsomely for your help, or ambush your crewmember and kill them. If you send a Mantis (good at melee combat) to help, the Slugs will always ambush you so that the Mantis can wipe them out and recover resources from their ship.* ScratchDamage: Every shot that hits a room will do at least one hull damage, provided the weapon has some sort of base damage. Bombs, the fire beam, and the bio-beam are exceptions. Rock ships (specifically, their Rock Hull Plating augment) have a chance to negate hull damage every time they are attacked, although the systems hit are still damaged. The Type-A Stealth cruiser (specifically, their Titanium System Casing) inverts that, having a chance at protecting the system but still suffering hull damage.* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Both you and your enemy can do this, though it takes time for the jump drive to charge. It's generally unwise for the player, because retreating doesn't reward scrap, though it is useful for running through Rebel nodes which give almost no reward and are more difficult than normal.[[note]]If the player isn't strong enough to defeat an enemy, they can also jump away, upgrade, and return, though the ever-present fleet will move closer with every jump.[[/note]] The enemy occasionally does it right at the start of the battle, either out of fear or to warn the Rebels, or when they've been damaged enough, but you can stop them by disabling their engines or pilot system or by keeping the piloting crew members busy.* SecretTestOfCharacter: In the Zoltan Homeworlds, you can encounter a ship preaching a message of pacifism. Listen to what they have to say and they'll direct you to another beacon, where you'll find [[spoiler:a hostile rebel ship waiting for you! Talk to them instead of fighting and push for a peaceful resolution, and they'll eventually reveal themselves to be the Zoltan from earlier. They will praise you for taking their message seriously and offer their support, unlocking the Zoltan Cruiser and either a Zoltan Shield or a crew member with maxed stats]].* ShootTheBullet: ** All defense drones can shoot down missiles, asteroids, and hostile boarding drones. Mk. II defense drones can also shoot down incoming laser and ion shots.** Missiles, lasers, ions, asteroids, and drones can collide in space, although very rarely.* ShortRangeShotgun: Shows up in ''Advanced Edition'' with Flak Weaponry. They shoot several projectiles with actual spread, with the expected accuracy and medium-to-long reloading times. Often better than ion weapons at stripping shields, but their inaccuracy leaves them ill-suited for the precision needed for most battles.* ShoutOut: ** Some of the default names for crewmembers--[[VideoGame/{{Minecraft}} Notch]] and [[Series/{{BurnNotice}} Mike Weston]], for instance.** Some of the achievements:*** The picture for "Trustworthy Auto-Pilot" achievement is a [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey red lens with "PAL 1000" inscribed above]].*** The achievement for fully repairing a Kestrel Cruiser that has been beaten down to one [[HitPoints Hull Point]] is "[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact Tough Little Ship]]".*** The 'Rule Ten: Greed is Eternal' achievement is a reference to [[Franchise/StarTrek Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition]].** If you blank the ship's name and press enter, the name will automatically change to "[[PlanescapeTorment The Nameless One]]".** If you're stranded and out of fuel, you will get a wait option in your map screen. This causes random events to happen until the rebel fleet catches up to you. In one random event, a ship arrives with this subtle nod to Han Solo of ''Franchise/StarWars'':---> ''A modified [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/YT-1300_light_freighter YT-1300 Freighter]] jumps to an area near your sector. Your gut tells you these people are smugglers, but they seem to be feeling altruistic and present an offer of assistance.''** One random event has you following the distress beacon of an Engi ship that has crash landed on a planet populated by [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic brightly colored horse-like creatures]]. [[SchmuckBait Go ahead]], try to take a few with you. Interestingly, the event was implemented on request by a donor to the game.** The effect shown when a ship jumps, a spark-like flash that quickly moves along the length of the ship, is the same FTL jump effect used by the Colonial ships in the remade ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''.** The default name for the Stealth Cruiser type-B, the [=DA-SR12=], is an obvious shout out to the ''Normandy'' SR-1 and SR-2 of the Franchise/MassEffect series, another frigate famed for its experimental stealth capabilities.** The default name for the Stealth Cruiser type-C is Simo-H, referring to UsefulNotes/SimoHayha a.k.a. the deadliest soldier in history. As Häyhä did, this ship is expected to use stealth and precise weaponry to decimate the opposition although ironically, the Simo-H swaps the cloaking system for a drone system that produces super shields instead.* ShowsDamage: The Rebel Flagship is the only ship to show increasing external damage as you defeat each of its forms.* SingleGenderRace: The Engi. All races beside human lack an alternate gender graphic, for that matter. Averted with the Advanced Edition DLC though, as now all races have a variety of slightly different sprites to denote genders and/or races.* SkewedPriorities: You may meet a mercenary who offers his services: delay the Rebels, or scout the sector. If you choose to fight, the text will read: "Mercenaries are worse than rebels. The only honorable course is to engage the mercenary in battle."* SkillScoresAndPerks: You improve your ship through a skill score system wherein each installed system can be incrementally improved by spending scrap. Systems that aren't pre-installed on your ship can be bought at some stores for a scrap cost, after which they can also be improved in the same manner. All systems are capped and higher-level upgrades are more expensive. Also, main systems like weapons, shields, engines, drones, and cloak have their upgrades manifest by simply increasing the amount of [[TimTaylorTechnology power you can pump into them]] and you need to upgrade your reactor to obtain more power, while passive subsystems like helm control, doors, and sensors don't consume power and are improved directly. Crew members meanwhile improve the performance of certain systems by manning them, and get better at in the process via StatGrinding.* SoleSurvivor:** Players can come across distress beacons set up by other spacemen who survived crashing into an alien world. These survivors can be brought aboard the ship and either become new crewmates, hurl themselves out of the airlock, or kill one of your crew at random.*** If you have an upgraded medical bay, you're given an option that guarantees the first of these actions.** If something goes drastically wrong, one of your crew members can become this.** There's an achievement for the Mantis ship having one crew member survive an all-out battle with another ship.* SomethingWeForgot: The game helps avert this if you try to jump to another node while your crew is still aboard the enemy ship by giving you a warning prompt asking you if you really want to jump.* SpaceClouds: Nebulas, which cover certain jump points. Within, sensors are useless, obscuring vision of your own and enemy ships, though Slug PsychicPowers still work. Certain nebula jump points also contain a plasma storm, which cuts reactor output in half for the player and any enemy ships. Some sectors are one giant nebula, generally inhabited by Slugs, and those sectors don't impede the Rebels quite as much.* SpaceFriction: If a drone stops receiving power, it will slow down and gradually come to a stop rather than continuing to move at the same speed.* SpacePirates: If you're not fighting Rebels, you're likely fighting these. Usually they're a random type of NPC ship with a mix of the different races as crew, although some are exclusively Rockmen.* SpaceWhale: Never seen in-game, but mentioned off-hand in a random store description.--> ''A Mantis crew here has hunkered down in the abdomen of a long-dead space-whale--the only way, presumably, for them to operate their black-market trade without detection. Worth a look?''* SssssnakeTalk: Slugs tend to [[SelfDemonstratingArticle sssspeak like thissss]].* StandardHumanSpaceship: The Kestrel and other Federation ships play this straight, with their designs dominated by simple flat lines. The Rebel ships avert this, being moderately sleek and colorfully painted with no visible engines. Also, the Engi-built but Federation-run and human-crewed Stealth Cruisers avert this, being very sleek and glossy (for the Type A) or shiny (for the Type B), which is strange given that the ships the Engi build for their own use are extremely utilitarian and boxy.* StartXToStopX: An amusing example pops up in ''Advanced Edition''. Has a crew member been Mind Controlled into attempting to murder their comrades? Just use your own Mind Control device on them, and they'll be instantly brainwashed back to normal.* StatGrinding: If you happen upon an enemy ship with a loadout that is incapable of damaging you, you can soak up their attacks indefinitely while letting your crew gain experience for it. With enough patience, your entire crew can be experts in multiple systems. Any enemy shot that misses you gives experience to your engines officer and helmsman, any shot that that hits your shields gives experience to your shields officer when they recharge your shields, and any shot you fire gives experience to your weapons officer regardless of whether or not it hits. You just need to keep your firepower low enough to not kill the enemy, such as by turning off most weapons or using non-lethal ion weapons until you're done grinding.* StealthInSpace: A cloaking device is one of the ship systems you can pick up. Normally, firing [[InvisibilityFlicker breaks the cloaking effect]], but an augment removes that limitation.* StealthPun: In one event, an Engi captain reports "an odd bug", and requests your help in debugging [[spoiler:[[InsectoidAliens a Mantis]].]]** The Slugs are pretty much psychic giant slug [[ConMan con men]]. They're [[spoiler: slimy in both the literal and figurative sense]].** The Slug cruiser C layout, called the Ariolimax is banana yellow. It so happens that ''Ariolimax'' is the scientific name for the banana slug.* SternChase: You're only ever a few jumps ahead of the Rebel Fleet. You ''can'' slow them down if you're zipping by all events or come across an event where friendly Federation forces will bog down their fleet with bad tracking data, but otherwise, expect to keep running for your life within a few jumps.* StoneWall: The Mantis Cruiser Type B, at least early on. It has no weapons, level 2 shielding to start, a crew of two Mantises, and a four-person teleporter. Early combat tactics involve sending them both over to board enemy ships, leaving the shields to protect the ship since it has zero evasion in your absence. This is actually way more effective than it sounds, especially in the early levels. Plus, killing the crew instead of just blowing a ship up gives you a bigger Scrap reward, letting you buy more crewmates and/or upgrades.* SubsystemDamage: All systems and subsystems can be individually damaged. Systems with more than one reactor capacity have reduced effectiveness when damaged and can be disabled entirely if hit hard enough; systems with only one bar of reactor capacity are either working or not. This applies to enemies as well as players; deciding which system to target is one of the biggest tactical parts of the game.* SuicidalOverconfidence: Even if your ship has three shield layers and the enemy has a beam weapon and a weak laser as their only weapons, in most circumstances, they will try to fight you.* SupportPartyMember: Engi and Zoltan. The former does half damage and the latter has only 70 health, making both inferior combatants (though the latter make good suicide bombs if you have a clone bay). However, Engi repair twice as fast while Zoltan provide one bar of power to whatever room they're in, making both ideal for ship support during a battle.* SuspendSave: You can save and come back later, but this only lets you resume your progress once.* TheTalk: During your mission in Engi space, you may come across two ships stuck together, with signals and debris coming from them. You don't know what's going on and think something's wrong. There is a blue option wherein you ask your Engi crew mate to hail the ships.-->''Your Engi crewmember refuses. In a halting use of adjectives and nouns, followed by some animated holographic aids, the Engi explains the ships are... using each other to, loosely translated, "achieve a union." For some reason, this consolidation of ship matter sounds embarrassing and personal.''\\''You elect to leave the two Engi ships... to their "business." After questioning your Engi crewmember, however, you do manage to salvage what scrap parts you can from the perimeter, even though you feel slightly dirty for doing so.''* TakeAThirdOption: Called a 'blue option' in game, these allow you to use a unique member of the crew, weapons, or ship upgrades to get around random events; for instance, using an advanced medbay to cure an unknown virus, or using an ion gun to disable a defense system gone haywire. While standard options can pose a risk to your ship's hull, crew, or cost scrap, the vast majority of blue options are zero-risk, and might even contain greater rewards!* TakingYouWithMe: It is possible to destroy the Rebel Flagship, with your ship getting destroyed at the exact same moment, and still win the game.** As of ''Advanced Edition'', Zoltans explode when killed, damaging enemy crew.* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Enemies can surrender (and pause gameplay) in the middle of a fight, even if their ship is half a second away from destruction. If you accept their surrender, everything that was about to destroy their ship will become instantly harmless. The same doesn't apply for you, though: if you accept surrender before the enemies' projectiles hit, they'll hit anyway.* TaughtByExperience: Your crewmen become better at the stations they're assigned to, become better at repairing the more they do it, and do more damage by killing enemy crew.* TeleportersAndTransporters: Used for boarding actions and bomb weapons.* ThemeNaming: ** Standard beam weapons are named after polearms, while standard missile launchers are named after things in Greek mythology.** Human-designed vessels have names relating to birds, whether an actual bird or mythology figures closely linked with birds, like the Nisos.* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Humans as crew members get a bad reputation for their MasterOfNone status and lack of blue events, so ''Advanced Edition'' added a few bonuses for keeping one around. For example, one event has some Engi for help dealing with "Robert Smith," a Mantis convinced he's a human. The blue option sending your Mantis to talk with Robert has him panicking and subsequently being put down, while the blue option sending your human allows you to recruit him or receive an engine upgrade. * ThisIsUnforgivable: Occasionally, while fighting ships, the enemy ship will surrender and give you offers so you can leave them alone. Against pirate ships, the "don't accept surrender" option is labeled as "Piracy cannot be forgiven. Attack!"* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Downplayed. You can't suck them straight out into space, but you can open up the airlock doors to suffocate enemies to death. If you've got upgraded blast doors, they'll be pounding at the doors while they die of asphyxiation.* ThoseTwoGuys: Not in the game itself, but gameplay-wise, if you use two of the same crew for boarding, chances are you're going to be having them both selected together a lot as it's both safer and faster.* TooDumbToLive: Whether on their controller's orders or their own volition, unshielded rebel drones pretty much commit suicide when they decide to enter an [[AsteroidThicket Asteroid Field]]. You literally don't have to do anything but watch the ship get demolished by the hazardous asteroids, making it a miracle that it even lasted long enough to encounter you.* TopDownView* TotalPartyKill: Damage to your ship's life support and/or door controls, especially when combined with fire, hull breaches or doors you left open to fight a fire or enemy boards but were locked open by an attack, can easily result in this if not addressed quickly. The same is true for your enemy.* TranslatorMicrobes: Most ships have a universal translator.* TrustPassword: A crewman in the aftermath of a nebula battle gives you one before dying, along with coordinates. If you go to those coordinates and scan the area, a Zoltan ship will remove its cloak, and its captain will demand your reason for being at that beacon. Giving the correct word will award you supplies for your service to the Zoltan, while saying anything else will begin a fight.* UnblockableAttack: Bombs are unblockable except by a Zoltan shield, but don't do hull damage. They can also miss, dependent on the target's engine power. The Artillery Beam is even more unblockable--except for the Zoltan shield, it can pass through any defenses and cannot miss.* UncommonTime: The Zoltan themes are in 10/4.* UnexpectedGameplayChange: In the base game, The Last Stand suddenly has you move in from the right side of the map to intercept the Rebel Flagship. Justified because instead of the Rebel Fleet chasing you, you are now chasing the Rebel Flagship. Your roles have reversed, and so has the direction you have to move. This was removed with the ''Advanced Edition'' update, where direction is consistent with previous sectors. Another difference in both versions is that there is no advancing Rebel Fleet; instead, they take over nodes at random while you try to catch and defeat the boss.* UngratefulBastard: ** It is possible to ride to the rescue of some harassed ship, only to have it jump away without offering anything as thanks. The game doesn't seem to mind, though--it points out that they wisely fled while you were keeping their attackers busy. Given that this is a universe where two ships will fight over who gets the rewards, this is reasonable.** If you use a boarding drone for the {{Giant Spider}}s event, the victims will be rather displeased with you damaging their ship, their lives be damned, and only give you a small payment.** Similarly, there is an event where a space station's satellite defense system has a broken AI, and the repair crew ask if you can fix it. If you offer to help and destroy the satellites that were shooting at them, they won't be happy and will give you a small payment.* UnlockableContent: Only one ship, the Kestrel, is available for play at first. Eight other ships can be unlocked, either by playing through the game[[note]]Reaching sector five, and killing the final boss, unlocks the Engi and Federation cruisers respectively[[/note]] or by completing certain events. Each ship also has a 'Type B' variant which can be unlocked by earning ship-specific achievements. ''Advanced Edition'' adds a ninth ship and the ability to unlock new ships simply by beating the game with the previous one on the list. It also adds Type C ships which are unlocked by reaching the final sector using their corresponding Type B ship with Advanced Edition content turned on.* UnstableEquilibrium:** Pick up lots of scrap, take a minimum of damage, and have good encounters, and you have good chances to go far. On the other hand, taking lots of damage and being forced by the RandomNumberGod into poor encounters where you can't get much scrap will force you to use that scrap in repairing and hobbling on with poor equipment, which will further lower your chances of survival.** Getting into a fight while orbiting a star can quickly become this if you can't manage the fires created by the solar flares. If your pilot control or jump drive is knocked out, defeating the local enemy will quickly become the least of your worries; add to that a hit to your door controls, and you'll never get ahead of the flares.** The Pulsar environmental hazard introduced in Advanced Edition can result in your shields being dropped letting the enemy have free reign to attack and destroy you. The best advice for dealing with this hazard is to simply warp out as soon as possible unless you are certain you can take out their weapons.* UnwinnableByDesign: Unless you can manage to upgrade your ship to keep up with the increasing difficulty of the ships the game throws at you, it's quite possible to find yourself in a situation where you're incapable of killing your opponent. Boarding-based ships like the Mantis B are especially liable to find themselves in such a situation, as Zoltan shields and automated ships present a significant problem without ways of compensating for their defenses. The flagship basically enforces getting a strong offense up, as its myriad tricks make it far more formidable than normal enemies.* UnwinnableByMistake: The Backup DNA Bank augmentation prevents your crew from dying if the Clone Bay is off or broken, which means they can be brought back later, once it's turned on or repaired. However, if all your crew die while the Clone Bay is broken, and you have no other way of repairing it, [[http://i.imgur.com/veVlfcu.jpg they will all just sit inside the bank forever]], and with no pilot to charge the FTL you'll be stuck. You won't even get a GameOver screen, and must restart manually.* UselessUsefulStealth: The Cloaking system is one of the best means of avoiding attacks at your disposal. However, the blue options it grants for events usually just mean you're going to skip a fight, which you almost never want considering you have a limited number of encounters per sector. * VariableMix: With the exception of Sector 8's special music, each music track has two versions: calm and spacey most of the time, but incorporating more rhythm and percussion when you're squaring off against a hostile vessel. One version automatically fades into the other as the situation changes.* [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Very Definitely Final Fight]]: The Rebel flagship. Even before you intercept her and get to see her up close, you know you're in for something big.* VideoGameCaringPotential: You can easily get attached to individual crew members. Rescuing hapless space travelers from rebels, pirates, asteroids, giant alien spiders, and anything else that pops up can give you the warm fuzzies as well. Especially when you encounter another Federation vessel, usually heavily damaged and always in trouble.** Many encounters end with the enemy trying to bribe you including the Lanius showing you pictures of their cargo holds. Actually, you can spend a few events trying to communicate with the Lanius. One of their surrender encounters has them use their limited knowledge of human culture to surrender by showing you a video feed of them waving around make-shift white flags WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes style.** You may come across an event where you could take the less friendly option and get some benefit, but you can also be nice and possibly not get anything, but the game will compliment you when you're lucky. For instance, there's a random event where the Engi ship at a beacon immediately surrenders their supplies. One option is accepting the supplies. If you refuse and explain you're friendly, they'll leave in relief, leaving you nothing, or the Engi will say you deserve the supplies anyway for your kindness. There's no additional benefit aside from you feeling better for it, since you get the same amount of stuff. * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: ** You can accept bribes from pirates to leave them alone when you find them attacking another ship, agree to hand over one of your crew to slavers in order for the rest to go free, and cruise right on by desperate pleas for help without stopping. For more hands-on cruelty potential, you can deal with enemy boarding parties by opening up your airlocks and letting them suffocate. Some of the game's achievements actually ''encourage'' cruelty to your enemies--such as one that requires you to drain an enemy ship of oxygen, while another requires you to KillItWithFire by having [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill every single square of an enemy ship]] ablaze at the same time.** There is also an event that encourages cruelty where you meet a pirate who is trying to extort resources from a planet-side colony and can "[[DoWrongRight show him how it's done]]" by igniting their villages with fire bombs, should you choose to, granting better rewards.** One of the achievements to unlock the Type B Mantis Cruiser requires you to defeat the last enemy crewmember on their ship with your last crewmember. The easiest way to do this is to kill all but one of their crew, beam back, suffocate your entire crew save one, then finish the job on their ship.** Depending on your weapons, it can be better to watch as the crew of an enemy ship slowly but surely dies while cowering in one of the few safe rooms left. [[KillItWithFire Fire flooding the shields room,]] [[AlmostOutOfOxygen a breach in the Oxygen room,]] [[KillerRobot a Killer Robot is tearing the med-bay to pieces and killed the last three crewmembers to attack it...]] Not hard to see why after flailing around trying to figure out what to do, and with no way to survive, sometimes an enemy will just... stop. [[SayYourPrayers As if looking for peace.]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Then your Bio-Beam cuts them in two.]]--->[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi-VNkT57oE "We do not accept surrender!"]]** If you've got a clone system (or even if you don't), [[EnergyBeings the Zoltan]] make excellent [[ActionBomb suicide bombs]]. * VideoGameTime: Making a few FTL jumps in a matter of a few minutes will cause the [[AdvancingWallOfDoom Rebel fleet]] to advance or the [[FinalBoss Rebel Flagship]] to take action, but you can idle around or fight an enemy ship nonstop all day and the Rebels will be more than patient enough to wait for you until you jump to another beacon.* VisualInnuendo: Federation Cruiser (Osprey/Nisos) is an extremely [[PhallicWeapon Phallic ship]] ([[http://ftlwiki.com/images/thumb/1/1a/Cruiser_Hull_Federation_A_The_Osprey.png/280px-Cruiser_Hull_Federation_A_The_Osprey.png take a look at it]]). Just to make things less subtle, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything it has a one-of-kind laser which it can shoot from its tip and penetrates all shields. However, it must wait a long time between each discharge]].* WaveMotionGun: The Artillery Beam. It takes up its own module instead of being incorporated into your weapons, and bypasses all shields except Zoltan shields. It also cuts across multiple rooms like all beam weapons in the game, dealing 4-5 damage to most ships, and sometimes more. The Glaive Beam is available to all ships and is flat-out the strongest weapon in the game, able to do up to 12 damage in one sweep if it hits four rooms and no shields block it.* WeaksauceWeakness: AI-controlled crewless ships can't repair hull breaches. Because a damaged system can't be repaired as long as there is a fire or a hull breach in the same room, this means breaching a system room and destroying the system will destroy it ''permanently''.* WeaponizedTeleportation: Teleports pass through shields easily, which the "bomb" weapon type exploits, teleporting an explosive device directly into the ship and damaging a system. They can't be blocked by defense drones like missiles can, but they only damage systems and not both systems and hull like missiles. Like all weapons, they can miss if the enemy has high enough evasion.* WeHaveReserves: The entire point of the Cloning subsystem. Who cares if your men keep dying? There's more where they came from. Can your enemy say the same? If they can, then this isn't quite as viable.* WhatTheHellHero: A few events will call you out if you choose not to help out. At least one is particularly nasty about it; if you opt not to help a ship struggling through an AsteroidThicket, sometimes they'll make it out alive without you and relay your location to the rebel fleet as revenge, speeding up the fleet for the next two jumps.** ''Advanced Edition'' adds an event where you can steal supplies from a rebel colony. Assuming they don't booby-trap it, they'll cite you as an example of why the rebels have support.* WhatYouAreInTheDark: The game doesn't have an explicit KarmaMeter, but many events will test your morality. Do you take the bribe of a pirate and let him go after some ship, or do you take him on? When a slaver offers gifts in exchange for [[VillainsWantMercy letting them live]], do you accept and let him live to continue his dirty work, or do you finish the job? Do you help when asked for it, even if it may cost you health, ammo or crew? There's no one around who will judge you, only your conscience. Choose, skipper.* WhenAllElseFailsGoRight: You are always traveling from left to right - even in the eighth sector when trying to catch the flagship, your ship begins on the left side of the map and the flagship generally on the right.* AWinnerIsYou:-->''Thanks to the valiant effort of: [ship name]\\And her successful crew: [crew names]\\The Rebel's flagship was destroyed, throwing their fleet into chaos and ensuring a Federation victory''* WireDilemma: You can run into one of these during a special event in which your ship has to dodge an active mine. Fail to dodge it or be unable to TakeAThirdOption and the mine will attach to your ship, forcing a crew member to go outside and try to defuse it. If the crew member panics at the sight of the mine's interior, you are then prompted to cut a red or blue wire. Cut the right one, and the mine is disarmed and you deconstruct it for scrap. Cut the wrong one, and the mine explodes, doing significant damage to your hull as well as ending the unlucky crew member tasked with disarming it. If you have a Clone Bay, the clone steps out, sheepish and apologetic.* WithThisHerring: You have [[WhatAPieceOfJunk an old, clunky ship]] with hand-me-down weapons and a small crew. Your mission is to save the struggling Federation. Good luck.* WoundedGazelleGambit: ** One random event has a Rebel soldier teleport on to your ship, hoping to defect from them and join your crew. You can either reject his offer, or let him join. However, if you let him join, he will either A) be a loyal crewmate, which is always a plus, or B) immediately betray you and BackStab one of your crewmates, killing him or her.** Slug ships occasionally claim to be unarmed and seeking asylum, before weapons spring from their hull and they attack.* YetAnotherStupidDeath: So many ways.** Many deaths are related to oxygen/fire issues, such as:*** Accidentally depressurizing half your ship by forgetting to close an airlock.*** Repairing the oxygen room, but forgetting to put power back into it and not noticing until your crew start dying.*** Being in a plasma storm in a nebula, and deactivating the oxygen to activate just one more shield or weapon to prevent hull damage, then forgetting to turn it back on in the confusion or turning on too late.*** Screwing up the anti-fire door shuffle, and watching your oxygen, door control and/or medbay get burnt by the fire or hit by enemy weapons. Resulting in crew that have a choice of dying from asphyxiation or fire.*** Your door or oxygen system getting hit while your ship is on fire, hull breached or with external doors open.*** [[http://postimg.org/image/xz02abme9/ Here is an example. If anyone leaves the room they are in they immediately suffocate.]]** Throwing units in the medical bay during a battle, with a ship with low oxygen levels, and/or to fight boarders and forgetting to put power into it.** Certain events can inflict hull damage which can result in a heavily damaged ship being destroyed.** Certain events can cause crew loss. They do not make exceptions if you have only one crew member left.** Boarding an enemy ship during heated combat can result in a number of stupid deaths for your crew as your attention is drawn to one area when you need it on another:*** Teleporting your crew onto an enemy ship, only to see it warp away.*** The Federation Cruiser's Artillery Beam special weapon is not controllable by the player in any way except by powering it down. This can lead to situations when, after boarding a ship, it shoots the beam at a compartment your boarding party are in, which can kill your crew through friendly fire if they're already at low health.*** Forgetting to turn off auto-fire and accidentally destroying the opposing ship with your crew on board.*** Forgetting that having your boarding party destroy a system results in hull damage, with the hull already critical. A ship with 1 hull point left whose crew have retreated to the medbay, will leave your boarding party to attack some other system which, if they destroy it, will blow up the ship with themselves on it.*** Watching your boarding team get taken out because the enemy has a cloak and they got stuck in a combat situation they can't win, unable to get back to your ship since a cloak blocks teleporting.*** In the same vein, teleporting onto a ship with upgraded doors and being killed by a lack of oxygen, or getting stuck in a medbay or against overwhelming numbers of enemy crew.*** Teleporting crew onto an AI Drone ship with a Level 1 teleporter. Drone craft have no atmosphere, and your crew will die before the Level 1 teleport recharges. Level 2 is fine, but cuts it close. Rockmen can last a little longer with their 150% health, and Crystals have improved suffocation resistence.*** Similar to the above, accidentally picking the wrong crew to teleport to an AI Drone ship, and sending a Zoltan instead of a crewmember from a more suitable race. Their lowered health prevents them from surviving long enough for a level 2 teleport to save them.** Forgetting you turned your weapons onto auto-fire and wasting shots/charge time OR forgetting that you turned it off and missing damaging important systems.** Firing a weapon too soon, ie. a beam or a laser before another weapon, like a missile or a bomb, has time to actually connect and disable the shields.** Deciding to hold off healing a crew member just to have him/her killed by a breaching weapon.** Forgetting to return units to stations, heal them, repair systems, etc. before jumping into combat.** Forgetting to buy repairs/fuel/missiles/drones before porting.** Forgetting to check if that beacon leads to where you want to go and misjudging the rebel's advance just to get bogged in DesperationAttack against the fleet.** Giving supplies to a passing ship for the rewards [[VideoGameCaringPotential or the good feeling]] and forgetting that: 1. you don't have the supplies and/or, 2. this type of event can give you a benefit that you don't need, like map data when you are on the second to last beacon or getting a augment you can't keep/already have.* YouWillNotEvadeMe: The Crystals' Lockdown ability prevents crew from entering or escaping a room, preventing enemy crew from running away to their Medbay to heal.* ZergRush: ** Certain events can result in six boarders appearing on your ship. This often exceeds the amount of crew a player will have under their control for the majority of their attempts.** The player themselves can use this strategy with the use of the Clone Bay, which allows sending inexhaustible waves of boarders onto the enemy ship. Combine with a four-man Teleporter for maximum effect.** The Flagship is really bad about this. If its crew has survived to the third stage, they'll funnel over to your ship as fast as their teleporter can charge, and their crew size is equal to your maximum, plus the ones manning the weapons.[[/folder]]----->''You find nothing of major importance reading through the page. However, exploring it has taken a lot of time [[{{TVTropesWillRuinYourLife}} and allowed the Rebel fleet to catch up]].''----